

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 














































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SHOULD SHE 


HAVE LEFT HIM? 



WILLIAM C. HUDSON 

i » 

(Barclay North) 

AUTHOR OF “THE DIAMOND BUTTON! WHOSE WAS IT?” “JACK GORDON, 
KNIGHT-ERRANT, GOTHAM, 1883,” “ VIVIER, OF VIVIKR, LONG- 
MAN A CO.,” “THE MAN WITH A THUMB,” “on THE 
RACK,” “THE DUGDALE MILLIONS,” ETC. 



r 19 ; 094 

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NEW YORK 

THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 

31 East 17TH St. (Union Square) 



Copyright, 1894, by 

THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 


All rights reserved. 


THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
RAHWAY, N. J. 


POPULAR NOVELS 

BY 

W. C. HUDSON 

(BARCLAY NORTH). 

In extra cloth, 75 cents ; paper, 50 cents. 

The Diamond Button : Whose was it? 

On the Rack. 

Jack Gordon, Knight-Errant, Gotham, 1883. 

The Man with a Thumb. 

Vivier, of Vivier, Longman & Co., Bankers. 
The Dugdale Millions. 

IN PRESS: 

Should She have Left Him? 


THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO., 

31 East 17th St. (Union Square), N. Y. 



% 

SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT 





CONTENTS 


■ } 

BOOK I.— Revelation. 

CHAPTER 

PAGE 

I. 

A Saratoga Evening, 

. . . I 

II. 

Dorothy’s Idyl, 

7 

III. 

Wifed, not Wedded, 

. 18 

IV. 

A Girl Becomes a Woman, 

29 

V. 

Evolution, 


I. 

BOOK II. — Decision. 

Marriage A la Mode, . 

• 55 

II. 

An Eccentric Honeymoon, 

. . 65 

III. 

A Bewildered Father, 

• 75 

IV. 

A Diplomatic Mother, 

. . 85 

V. 

Changing the Tactics, 

. . . 95 

VI. 

Plans that Fail, .... 

cn 

O 

w 

VII. 

The Bishop to the Rescue, . 

. 115 

VIII. 

Law Supports the Church, 

. . 125 

I. 

BOOK III.— Ostracism. 

A Critical Point, .... 

. 135 

II. 

Mrs. Deekman’s Dinner, . 

. . 140 

III. 

Mrs. Trevor-Allen’s Intrigue, 

. . 152 

IV. 

Mr. Adams Arrives, .... 

. . 162 

V. 

Fortune’s Fantastic Sports, 

. 172 

VI. 

A New Tangle, 

179 


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SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


BOOK I.— REVELATION. 


CHAPTER I. 

A SARATOGA EVENING. 

The number ended with a crash of horns and 
kettledrums. Trescotte, under the pretense of loop- 
ing up a swaying branch of the creeping vine, threat- 
ening havoc to the coiffure of his bride of three 
months, leaned over her and said in a low tone : 

“ I’ll lure Davis away with the bait of a cigar ; 
then shake him and come to you for a stroll in the 
park before retiring.” 

Mrs. Trescotte, young and beautiful, with shining 
eyes lifted a beaming acquiescence. 

For a fleeting moment Trescotte was tempted to 
defy the conventionalities and embrace his wife 
before the multitude. For a fleeting moment, too, 
Tracey Harte, leaning against a pillar in an adorable 
attitude, contemplated existence with such a woman 
apart from club, stable, and the English valet he had 
just achieved. 

As Trescotte, followed by Davis, carefully threaded 

































































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2 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


his way among the women crowding the veranda, 
Mrs. Trescotte moved her chair so that she looked 
out upon the park within the three sides of the 
great building, to the disappointment of Tracey 
Harte, who had seen, in the absence of her husband, 
opportunity to put his own fascinations on dress 
parade. 

Mrs. Trescotte was very happy. Life with Tres- 
cotte was all she had imagined it to be in the days 
of dreams and promise. 

The orchestra began another number. This time 
a selection in accord with her mood — tenderly 
melodious, with a deep plaintive undertone of rest 
and peace. She surrendered herself to its enjoy- 
ment and gazed out upon the green lawn with its 
black shadows and the broad graveled paths, where 
the electric lights photographed in fantastic net- 
work the limbs and foliage of the trees through 
which they shone, dimly conscious that immediately 
beneath her were seated two men who smoked fra- 
grant cigars and murmured a conversation the music 
did not interrupt. 

She was very happy. At another time she would 
have resented this desecration of music, but now 
everything seemed to fit into her mood — the music, 
the lights, the soft languorous air, the swaying 
branches, their responsive shadows on the broad 
graveled paths, the murmuring voices beneath, even 
the fragrant smoke of the cigars — all seemed to be 
of the atmosphere of love. 

Of course, I know this was very absurd in a young 










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A SARA TOGA EVENING. 


3 


woman of fashion of the highest social rank, and 
who had been married all of three months — at vul- 
gar Saratoga, too — but then, who of us have not 
had our aberrations. 

The music died away — so softly indeed that Mrs. 
Trescotte was only made conscious of the end of the 
programme by the movement of the people on the 
veranda. In a moment more it was comparatively 
deserted. The musicians gathered up their instru- 
ments and flitted away. The uniformed hall boys 
moved back the music stands, and arranged the 
chairs into their customary platoons. Mrs. Tres- 
cotte, now a conspicuous figure in her solitariness, 
continued to look out upon the park with its 
delicate tracery of shadows upon lawn and broad 
graveled paths. The voices of the two men 
beneath came up distinct and audible. 

“ A most extraordinary tale — such complications,” 
said one voice. 

“ Isn’t it ? ” asked the other. “ No one will accuse 
me of inventing it, for it is beyond my powers.” 

“ Simply extraordinary. Bronson Howard ought 
to get hold of it for his next comedy, by Jove ! ” 

“ Its tragedy, my boy.” 

“For the woman, yes. But think of the man’s 
position. Married innocently to two women and 
not knowing which is his wife. She’s my wife ; no, 
she isn’t ; yes, she is. Tragedy it maybe, but broad 
comedy as well.” 

“ I can see nothing but the tragedy, the pathos, 
the wreck of lives.” 



















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SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


“ What will the new bride do ?” 

“ Leave him of course, as a first step. Afterward, 
what? Have him indicted for bigamy? What 
good ? He was innocent of wrongdoing. She can 
do nothing. Her life is ruined. There is no place 
for her but in retirement.” 

“ Will he go back to the other woman ? ” 

“ I doubt it. It was a foolish marriage at best — 
when he was very young. They were separated in 
a few months.” 

“ And neither knows the truth yet?” 

“ None of the parties involved, except Adams.” 

“ And you have come here to inform him — to 
break up his honeymoon.” 

“ That’s the melancholy truth of it. As soon as 
I reached New York I consulted Strateweighs — the 
head of our firm, you know. He was very clear 
about it. It was my duty as his counsel, Strate- 
weighs said. They must know the truth. Good 
Heavens ! why couldn’t I have learned the truth four 
months ago? Here I’ve been traveling with this 
man for six months, and only as we are about to 
part did he consult me as to his own position, so 
revealing the whole story.” 

“ I feel as if I had been spending an evening at 
the theater. Either your story has dramatic interest, 
or your recital has.” 

“ You know the dramatis persona .” 

Mrs. Trescotte arose, nervously anxious to get 
away from the sad story. As she turned from the 
railing her husband came to her. 














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A SARA TOGA EVENING. 


5 


“ I have shunted Davis on. to Parkinson,’' he 
laughed. “ Another numismatologist. They are 
worrying each other already and good for the whole 
night.” 

His tone changed quickly to one of apprehension, 
as he looked at her. 

“What is the matter? What has occurred?” 

As she handed him her wrap she smiled sadly. 
He saw she was struggling to keep back her tears. 

“ Little that I know,” she replied, as she prepared 
to receive the wrap about her shoulders. “ I have 
been hearing the fragment of a very sad story.” 

Then she took his arm, leaned heavily upon it ; 
as she looked up into his eyes, her own filled with 
love. 

“ O Harry, a lawyer has come here to-night to 
tell a bride, only married as long as we have been, 
that she is not married to her husband — that he is 
really married to another woman, and he is innocent 
of any wrongdoing.” 

“He is ignorant of wrongdoing?” asked Tres- 
cotte, quickly sympathetic. 

“He is ignorant and innocent,” she replied. 
“ God help and pity her if she loves him as I do 
you ! ” 

Trescotte drew her closer to him, and, looking 
down upon her said tenderly : 

“ God help and pity him, if he loves her as I do 
you ! ” 

Then perceiving the teardrops trembling in her 
eyes, he led his fair young bride down the steps to 






































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6 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


the broad, graveled paths where the delicate, fan- 
tastic shadow tracery was. 

Surely this young woman had gotten into the 
wrong century. She, of aristocratic training, from 
that world where marriages are made from consid- 
erations of 

u Well, I shan’t tell them to-night, anyhow. 
Come, let us get a cooling drink, and then I’m off 
to bed. I haven’t been out of a car berth for twelve 
nights.” 

Two men came out of a by-path and went off in 
the direction of the shining lights. 

Mr. and Mrs. Trescotte went up into the shadows. 





































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CHAPTER II. 


DOROTHY’S IDYL. 

Mrs. Trescotte was very happy. She had mar- 
ried the man of her choice. 

The opposition to Trescotte, because he lacked 
the wealth Mrs. Courtenay deemed necessary to the 
place her daughter should occupy in the exclusive 
world in which they moved, had been dispelled, 
happily, a few months before the wedding. 

Trescotte had grown to manhood, and lived the 
life thereafter of one having the assurance of a large 
inheritance, trained to no pursuit or profession. 
When, however, the elder Trescotte died it was dis- 
covered that he had devoted the last decade of his 
life to turning valuable New York real estate into 
questionable securities, with the result of nearly dis- 
sipating a fine property. At the end of some 
months of vexatious and confusing labor the young 
man found himself in possession of a property of 
only eight thousand a year — an amount which Mrs. 
Courtenay said some time later, when his income 
became a matter of concern to her, any clerk could 
earn in a twelve-month, and which was but half the 
amount young Waldemar, son of the great German 
banker, spent each year on his horses alone. 






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8 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


Waldemar had been selected as a son-in-law by 
Mrs. Courtenay because of his wealth and aristo- 
cratic connections abroad. 

Trescotte’s income was small compared with that 
which the world expected him to possess. When its 
figures were known he was immediately reduced 
from that enviable position — a marriageable quan- 
tity. It certainly was reprehensible in Trescotte, 
having ceased to be a desirable parti , to continue to 
frequent the halls of society — to bring that charm- 
ing personality, that winning face, that graceful 
tongue, both wise and witty, to functions where 
young and sometimes incautious girls came to find 
husbands. Moreover, it was embarrassing to the 
matron mothers. To drop him rudely from their 
invitation lists was impossible, for many of them 
dated their social success from the day when 
their own names were entered upon that list of his 
mother’s. Besides, he was widely and closely con- 
nected with the most exclusive of the nice people. 
Having committed the unforgivable crime of disap- 
pointing the world in his financial realizations, he 
should have had the grace to withdraw himself, with 
his charming personality, his polished manners, and 
his diminished income. But he didn’t. He went 
about just as he had done when all the world sup- 
posed he would have the income of a millionaire. It 
was stupid of him, I confess, but really he was 
unconscious of the crime he had committed. 

Mrs. Trevor-Alien, that incomprehensible young 
wife of a very old man, won doubting applause 












































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DOROTHY'S IDYL. 


9 


from the matrons, by the remark that Trescotte 
was without redeeming vices, and would not be so 
dangerous if he would but devote himself to the 
young married women instead of the young girls. 

Trescotte was yet a subject of discussion when 
he relieved the anxiety of all the matron mothers, 
save one, by devoting himself ardently to Dorothy 
Courtenay. Mrs. Courtenay’s anguish was not 
allayed by the further discovery that these atten- 
tions were not disagreeable to her daughter. 

Dorothy had always given her mother a great 
deal of trouble. Thinking for herself, her conclu- 
sions were alarming, because in Mrs. Courtenay’s 
opinion they were radical, not to say anarchical. 
She had been heard to express the belief that all of 
life’s happiness was not to be found in the exclusive 
world in which her mother lived, and for which she 
had been trained. On another occasion she had 
ruined her father’s breakfast by the remark that 
wealth was not essential to a useful life. But 
when she gave expression to the heresy that she 
would prefer as a husband a man whom she could 
respect for his ability, attainments, and correct life — 
even if of moderate means — to the average man of 
her acquaintance, however rich, it was voted in the 
family that Dorothy was cursed with opinions, 
fairly incendiary, and Mrs. Courtenay at once took 
her in hand. 

“You spring from two of the great families of 
this country,” she said, “and your life must be con- 
trolled and directed by that fact. God has placed 













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10 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


you in this station of life, the highest in the land, 
and you have duties and obligations in consequence. 
It is only within the present generation that we 
have received that recognition from abroad which 
is our due. Now, we are received by the nobility 
of other countries upon equal ground. This recogni 
tion has only been obtained by great caution, inter- 
marriage, and the observance of well fixed rules — 
principally the latter. Entrance to our circle has 
been made difficult, and only after the right to enter 
has been fully established. The most frequent 
effort has been made through marriage, so the 
rule was made that the members of the older 
families should marry among themselves; this has 
kept the blood pure. Then it has been made a rule 
that wealth should marry wealth. In England they 
not only have the advantage of us in titles which 
distinctly place the rank, but they have also the 
law of primogenitureship by which fortunes are 
kept intact. Here the whole tendency is to division 
of wealth. And so, in order to keep fortunes 
together, we have been compelled to concentration 
by marriage. An aristocracy is necessary to the 
making of good society; and an aristocracy cannot 
be maintained without wealth. We, of the aristoc- 
racy, must do our duty to the station of life in 
which we find ourselves, for in society properly con- 
stituted there must always be a standard of morals, 
culture, and refinement, and that standard can only 
be maintained by the best people. And, therefore, 
the best people must seek only those matrimonial 










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DOROTHY'S IDYL. 


1 1 


alliances which make for the common good of our 
caste — among themselves, where wealth is.” 

“ And yet,” replied Dorothy, and I regret to say, 
disputatiously, “ Mr. Waldemar is welcomed to 
matrimonial alliances, though he is far enough 
removed from our American families.” 

“You forget,” returned her mother in her most 
stately manner, “that Mr. Waldemar is allied to 
the nobility of his native country ; that on taking 
residence here he enters our circle by right of birth 
thus drawing the bonds between the best people of 
two countries closer together, while he contributes 
large wealth to the common stock.” 

“Mr. Trescotte,” suggested the daughter, “ is a 
descendant of one of the oldest of the American 
families.” 

“ Mr. Trescotte,” promptly returned the mother 
with much severity, “ has forfeited his rights by 
permitting the means by which he could maintain 
the traditions of his family and his place in our 
order to be wasted.” 

“ Why, mamma,” exclaimed the girl with that 
ridiculous adherence to exact truth which always so 
disconcert^ Mrs. Courtenay, “ it was his father who 
ruined the property.” 

“ His misfortune then ; and misfortunes of the 
kind are little less than crimes.” And then the 
good lady, losing her temper, lost her case by add- 
ing: “It is not becoming in you to dispute me. 
You must give heed to my words and obey me. 
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12 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


and I demand that proper respect be shown 
him.” 

“ Mr. Waldemar should first respect himself,” 
replied Dorothy rebelliously. “ His life does not 
commend him to a young woman as a good hus- 
band.” 

“Now for Heaven’s sake,” cried Mrs. Courtenay, 
actually growing vulgar, as she grew angrier, “ have 
you been bitten by the new craze ? ” 

“ What craze, mamma ? ” 

“ That idea ill-bred people are so indecently urg- 
ing, that woman should demand the same purity in 
man, man demands in woman.” 

“ Is there such a craze ? I did not know it ; but it 
seems to me to be very proper.” 

“ I have no patience with you, Dorothy. You are 
wholly unlike your sisters. Where you, who have 
been brought up so conservatively, can have picked 
up your radical notions, I cannot comprehend. But 
listen to me. You must cease your encouragement 
of Mr. Trescotte. If you do not, I shall be com- 
pelled to deny him the house.” 

Mrs. Courtenay ended the discussion by leaving 
the room, having made, true to her sex, the point, 
which was her sole object in the conversation, in 
her last remark. 

In truth, Mrs. Courtenay fled from the discussion. 
She stood in awe of her daughter, deny it to herself 
as she might. Dorothy possessed the vexatious 
faculty of making her mother appear as if she were 
uttering false morals in these discussions, by the 























































































































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DOROTHY'S IDYL. 


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simple process of presenting ideas, very well when 
applied to grocers and other laboring people, but 
absurd applied to people of rank and wealth, with 
their complex obligations. 

Mrs. Courtenay’s lecture did not make the in- 
tended impression on Dorothy. In fact Dorothy 
dismissed it as nonsensical. She resented, of course, 
the charge that she was encouraging Mr. Trescotte 
in his attentions ; she knew it to be false. A rapid 
review assured her that there had been noth- 
ing loverlike in Trescotte’s attentions, or in her 
reception of them. She had been pleased with him 
from their first meeting. Intuitively appreciating 
his worth early in their acquaintance, she had come 
to learn that he was a man who, for his amuse- 
ments, sought art rather than horses, and literature 
rather than gossip ; and, for occupation, scientific 
experiment rather than the stock ticker. Who, for 
companions, preferred men who could bring to their 
intercourse something more than the last quotation 
from the Board and the weights for the next handi- 
cap, even if all of them did not frequent the houses 
of Mrs. Courtenay’s world. Such was the singular 
perversity of Dorothy’s nature, that this appreci- 
ation of the man had operated to a prejudice in his 
favor. 

The real effect of her mother’s ill-tempered words 
was to open her eyes to possibilities which until 
then had not occurred to her, but which, being 
revealed, were the reverse of unpleasant. She sat a 
long time pondering on this revelation — so long, 














































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14 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

indeed, that when she emerged from her abstrac- 
tion, her head ached, but, she had reached a conclu- 
sion as to what she should do in the event of a 
certain great big IF. 

The next time Trescotte called, Dorothy told 
him she would be his wife. But not, of course, 
until after he had asked. 

He lingered at the door a moment as he was 
taking his leave, on this momentous occasion, and, 
after a little hesitation, said : 

“ I shall go at once to your father. There is a 
certain episode in my life of which I must speak 
before I can take his consent. It is not a bar, only 
an unpleasant remembrance. The knowledge shall 
be yours, should I be fortunate enough to obtain 
your father’s approval.” 

A young man of prompt execution, he went 
straightway to Mr. Countenay and placed that 
gentleman in a very embarrassing position. 

Mr. Courtenay knew that his wife destined 
Dorothy for Waldemar. In such matters Mr. 
Courtenay deferred to his wife as much the easier 
way ; but there was another side to this situation. 
He passed in the world for a man of strict probity 
and upright dealing ; yet, in his heart of hearts, he 
knew that he had largely contributed to the diminu- 
tion of the property of the elder Trescotte, by 
inducing that old gentleman to exchange excellent 
Broadway property for certain railroad bonds which 
had rapidly lessened in value until they were worth 
comparatively nothing, while the real estate, in the 







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DOROTHY'S IDYL. 


15 


same time, had more than doubled. At the time of 
the exchange, and indeed for some time thereafter, 
the bonds were quoted at a premium. This was a 
fact not to be denied. No one, much less the elder 
Trescotte, had ever charged Mr. Courtfcnay with 
having unloaded unprofitable holdings upon a 
friend. It was all ascribed to his good luck and to 
Mr. Trescotte’s bad luck that the smash should 
have come when it did. But the fact was, that Mr. 
Courtenay had possessed knowledge of certain 
events about to occur, which in the nature of things 
would practically wipe out the bonds, and he had 
hastened to get rid of them before the knowledge 
became general. So when this young Trescotte, 
with his charming manners and correct habits, came 
to ask for his daughter Dorothy, all the objection 
he could raise was what Mrs. Courtenay had made — 
Trescotte’s lack of wealth, and he, Courtenay, had 
largely helped to that lack. 

If Trescotte regarded Dorothy as a possession 
beyond fine gold, as I must confess I believe he was 
impracticable enough to do, he would have blessed 
that exchange which took so much wealth from 
him, for having decided to give his daughter to 
Trescotte, under an impulse of regret for having 
treated the elder Trescotte so shabbily, Mr. Courte- 
nay put forth a restraining hand against Mrs. 
Courtenay when she was disposed to make it un- 
pleasant for the young people who had become 
engaged at the very time she was laying deep plans 
to separate them. 












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1 6 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEE T HIM? 

Mr. Courtenay made so light of the episode Tres- 
cotte had spoken of that he did not even mention 
it to his wife. Mrs. Courtenay, on her side, had her 
compensation, by achieving that which is so dear to 
woman heart — a grievance, which was tenderly 
nursed, not only by her, but by her dear friends, the 
matron mothers, who could afford to expend large 
sympathy, since their own ewe lambs were safe from 
the fascinations of this very dangerous young 
man. 

The engagement took up its place in the 
Courtenay household, where it was tolerated only 
by all save Dorothy, who, having made it her reli- 
gion, worked herself into a sort of exaltation in the 
contemplation that nothing sordid entered into her 
romance. 

A sensation of an extraordinary character, how- 
ever, marked the course of this romance. 

Two railroad companies, one nearly moribund, a 
goodly portion of the worthless stock and bonds of 
which were held by Trescotte and retained because 
he could not sell them, began a fight over a tract 
of land which someone had discovered contained 
lead, or iron, or coal, or something else equally 
dear to the railroad heart, the title deeds of which, 
curiously enough, were also held by Trescotte, as 
evidences of his father’s foolish financial schemes. 

The young man was drawn into the very vortex 
of the fight, from which, after a laborious and 
bewildering period of two months, he emerged 
shorn of his stocks and bonds and title deeds, but 



DOROTHY'S IDYL. 


17 


with two millions or more to his credit in the bank, 
awaiting investment. 

Virtuous actions have their rewards. Mr. Courte- 
nay was credited with being a very shrewd old 
fellow who had seen the possibility from the first, 
and Mrs. Courtenay found compensation in the 
rapid change of her dear matron mother friends 
from self satisfied sympathy to mortified envy. 

There is a vast difference between an income of 
eight thousand and eighty thousand a year, and 
that is the reason why the prospective son-in-law, 
who had leaped from one to the other, appreciated 
a sudden change in the atmosphere in and about 
the Courtenay mansion — it was more balmy and 
genial. I am compelled to admit, however, that I 
saw traces of a littleness of spirit upon the part of 
Dorothy, in that she seemed to show regret over 
this change in the fortunes of her lover. I am really 
afraid that the notion crept into her silly, romantic 
head, that a sweet something, akin to a sacrifice, 
had been taken out of their idyl. 

So, in due course of time, they were married, and 
by the Bishop, too, for Mrs. Courtenay insisted on 
that, and the world came to the wedding, bringing 
those valuable presents it never would have 
brought to the wedding of an eight thousand dollar 
man. The bride and groom went on their travels, 
and at the end of three months brought up at 
Saratoga, where we found them in the first chapter. 














































































































































« • 













































































































































CHAPTER III. 


WIFED, NOT WEDDED. 

Mr. and Mrs. Trescotte breakfasted late on 
the morning following the evening Dorothy had 
heard the fragment of the sad story she told her 
husband. 

They were hardly seated at the table when Mr. 
Magrane, the lawyer who had piloted Trescotte 
through the sea of legal complications and finally 
landed him in the port of a millionaire, came to 
them. 

Mr. Magrane had never met Mrs. Trescotte, and 
so was presented by her happy possessor. As he 
told them he was just returned from the Pacific 
Coast, whither he had been for six months straight- 
ening out the troubles of the ownership of a gold 
mine, he regarded Mrs. Trescotte with so singular, 
and indeed curious, an interest that Dorothy was 
quite offended. And yet he made a marked effort 
to be agreeable, so apparent that she, keenly obser- 
vant and somewhat suspicious, concluded that there 
was ulterior purpose in the effort. Besides he 
puzzled her, for though she had not even heard of 
him before he presented himself, handsome, self- 
poised, polished in manner, there was about him 

18 







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WIPED , NOT WEDDED . 


19 


something strangely familiar. She could not divest 
herself of the fancy that this man, so agreeable and 
debonair, boded her no good. It was all very 
absurd and unjust, she knew. Her husband evi- 
dently respected and trusteed the man. Their brief 
conversation revealed to her that Mr. Magrane 
was the lawyer whose ability and honorable dealing 
in Trescotte’s rise to wealth she had heard her 
husband so highly praise, yet when, moving away, 
the lawyer requested half an hour’s conversation with 
her husband on business after breakfast, her impulse 
was to warn her husband. Against what ? That 
was the trouble. She had nothing but her intuitions, 
and she knew that man laughed at the intuitions 
of woman. So Dorothy held her tongue. They 
breakfasted leisurely, Dorothy not a little depressed 
and making an effort to appear cheerful and happy. 

When Trescotte had taken her to their apart- 
ments he went in search of Magrane. The lawyer 
was found on the veranda just outside the doors of 
the great office, his morning paper lying unread on 
his knees, in a brown study, oblivious to the whirl 
and flash of the butterflies of fashion about hfm. 

He arose promptly when Trescotte spoke to him, 
and rather nervously said : 

“ Let us go into Congress Park. I want to con- 
sult you on a matter of great concern. We can be 
entirely alone there.” 

They sauntered down Broadway, chatting on 
trivial matters, and turned into the Park, to a re- 
mote corner of which Magrane led Trescotte. 

























































































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20 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


It was apparent that the lawyer was not eager to 
begin the consultation to which he had invited 
Trescotte. Indeed, it was with an effort that he 
began to speak : 

“ I am in Saratoga for no other purpose than to 
see you. Certain statements have been made to me 
that deeply concern you.” 

Trescotte took out his case and offered Magrane a 
cigar. The lawyer declined and his client, selecting 
one for himself, wondered humorously if this were 
a prelude to the achievement of another million. 

“ I want to ask you some questions — questions 
you may think impertinent,” the lawyer went on. 

“ Why, Magrane,” replied Trescotte, striking a 
match and lighting his cigar, “ your questions could 
not be impertinent. Our relations are too close.” 

“ I suppose so,” said the lawyer, picking from the 
ground a green twig, and trying to tie it into a knot. 
He devoted himself so moodily to this occupation, 
that Trescotte, expectant, began to feel bored. The 
lawyer broke out abruptly : 

“ Trescotte,” he said as he threw the twig from 
him, having broken it, “ you were married to Miss 
Dorothy Courtenay three months ago. Does she 
know that once before you had gone through the 
marriage ceremony ? ” 

The abruptness of the lawyer, the unexpected 
question, and the wonder how Magrane obtained 
the knowledge, perplexed and startled Trescotte. 
There was anger, both in his eyes and tones, as he 
replied : 



WTFED, NOT WEDDED. 


21 


“ You are treading nearer to impertinence than I 
thought was possible, Magrane.” 

“ I know it/’ answered the lawyer calmly, for since 
he had made the plunge he so dreaded he was in 
possession of himself, and the lawyer again, rather 
than the friend. “ I ask the question as your coun- 
sel and legal adviser. Answer, please.” 

Magrane’s manner disposed of Trescotte’s anger 
summarily : 

“ Yes,” he replied; “and at the very beginning 
of our engagement.” 

“ Good ! ” cried Magrane ; “ that is far better than 
I expected.” 

“ I don’t know what you are getting at,” said 
Trescotte, quite astonished at the lawyer’s evident 
satisfaction, “ but when I went to her father for his 
consent to our engagement, I did not receive it 
until I had told him the story in all its details. His 
approval was given after he knew everything I had 
to tell.” 

“ Still better,” broke in Magrane, rubbing his 
hands delightedly ; “ it is in very good shape for 
you on that side.” 

Trescotte was yet more perplexed by the lawyer’s 
manner, but he finished by saying : 

“ Returning to Miss Courtenay to inform her of 
the result of my interview with her father, I told her 
the story without reservation.” 

“ Very, very good ! ” exclaimed Magrane ; “ your 
conduct was manly and upright. Now tell me the 
story of the other affair, in all its detail, omitting no 



22 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM ? 


point.” He hastened to add, “ I do not ask from 
idle curiosity. I have a purpose as you will soon 
know.” 

“ I am not proud of the story,” said Trescotte 
with a faint air of attempting to be humorous, “nor 
happy in recalling it to memory. It is a story so 
much more like the inventions of cheap romancers 
than an actual happening in real life, and is such a 
lamentable showing of my own weakness and absurd 
youth, that I avoid putting it on exhibition, except 
when necessary. Were it not supported by incon- 
trovertible documentary evidence, I would not ex- 
pect people to believe it.” 

“ Yes, yes,” interrupted Magrane with fine profes- 
sional scorn for apologies, “ but give me the story.” 

“ Well,” Trescotte went on, not a little nettled by 
the lawyers manner, “ when I was about twenty-one — 
nine years ago — I was in Switzerland where I had 
fallen in with an American family named Hallock, 
from Buffalo, consisting of the father and mother, 
son and daughter. We traveled together. The 
daughter, whose name was Elsie, and who was a 
very pretty little girl, was about my own age, and 
was principally noticeable for her alternation of 
spirits, either deep depression or reckless gayety. 
The son was some six or seven years older. There 
were no love passages between Elsie and myself, nor 
any attempts on either part. She treated me as she 
did her brother, frolicked with me when gay, avoided 
me when depressed. I regarded her merely as a 
jolly little companion of vacation days. 



























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“In our travels we reached a village near which 
was a ruin Mr. Hallock thought worthy a visit, and 
it was here my troubles began. On the evening of 
our arrival, Elsie and I sat upon a low balcony 
under the windows of the room of the inn occupied 
by our party as a sitting room, Mrs. Hallock was 
dozing within the room. Where Mr. Hallock and 
the son were, I don’t know. The moon was shining 
and the ruins were plainly visible, two miles away. 
Suddenly, and without a word to suggest the caprice, 
Elsie, who was in one of her moods of reckless gayety, 
climbed over the balcony railing, and let herself drop 
to the back of a horse, one of two standing saddled 
beneath. As she rode away laughing, she challenged 
me to follow her. Moved by the same spirit of 
recklessness, I followed on the other horse. I did 
not come up with her until she had reached the 
ruins. Here she proposed that we should climb to 
a ledge or balcony projecting from the remains of 
a battlement, from which, she said, she had heard a 
fine view could be had. I fastened the horses to the 
frail staircase by which the ledge was reached. We 
had not been there long before the horses, frightened 
at something, began to rear and plunge. I hastened 
to quiet them, but before I could reach the stair- 
way the horses had pulled it down and, freeing 
themselves, had galloped away. 

“ We were caught as in a trap. The stairway was 
the only means of descent. At first Elsie thought 
it was great larks. But when repeated calls and 
shouts brought us no help, and it was plain that we 



































































































































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24 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


should have to remain all night, she began to cry 
and blame herself for the freak that had brought 
us into such a predicament. I soothed her as best 
I could. Finally she fell asleep with my coat about 
her, and my shoulder for a pillow. Later I fell 
asleep, and thus we were found in the early morning 
by the angriest brother I ever saw. Returning to 
the inn, we were loaded with reproaches by all the 
family, and especially by an insufferably conceited 
jack — a cousin and a clergyman to boot — who had, 
as expected, joined the family during the night, and 
for whom, I believe, Elsie had been destined. 

“ If my tale was believed it was not heeded, 
though Elsie joined in asserting it. Mr. Hallock 
insisted loudly that Elsie was compromised beyond 
redemption, and the mother filled the air with 
lamentations over her poor ruined daughter. The 
brother declared that those who had ruined his sister 
must care for her thereafter or deal with him. 
Finding that the worst construction was put upon 
the affair, and losing my head through my sympathy 
for Elsie, who I thought was basely treated, in a 
burst of chivalric anger I declared I would marry 
her then and there and thus put an end to the out- 
rageous treatment of the girl. My proposal was 
eagerly seized upon, though Elsie protested strenu- 
ously, but wholly on my account. She was silenced, 
however, and almost before I was aware of it we 
were made man and wife by the cousin, who went 
through the ceremony as if he were attending his 
own funeral.” 










'V 



































WIFED , NOT WEDDED . 25 

“ It looks as if it were a deep-laid trap for you,” 
interjected the lawyer. 

“ No,” replied Trescotte positively, “for if it was, 
Elsie would necessarily have had to have been a 
party to it, and I am certain she was not. But I do 
think now that Mr. Hallock saw what the opportunity 
afforded and took advantage of it. I myself, from 
my want of experience and by reason of my youth, 
set the trap. The father and son sprang it. Some 
question arising the next day as to the authority 
of this cousin to perform the ceremony on foreign 
soil, a civil marriage was had.” 

“Ah, there was your opportunity to escape,” 
cried the lawyer. 

“Yes, if the question had been raised at first, 
but a night had passed. Well, the details of our 
life for the next five months are unimportant. If 
we did not hate each other and quarrel, at least 
we made no professions of love. We were young, 
accepted our singular position with the light-hearted- 
ness of youth, tried to enjoy life as we found it, and 
to be agreeable to each other. What might have 
been the final result of our close association of course 
I cannot now tell, but when I recall Elsie’s sweet 
disposition and many admirable qualities, I can 
imagine I could have in time grown very fond of 
her. But one morning, having joined the Hallock 
family at Berlin, a man named Adams — [here Mr. 
Magrane showed increased interest] — presented him- 
self, into whose arms Elsie rushed with a cry of joy. 
Adams declared he had come to take his legally 



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26 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


wedded wife. Then a story was told which had been 
concealed from me. A year previous Elsie had eloped 
from Buffalo with this man Adams and had fled 
with him to Cleveland. Whether young Hallock was 
in Cleveland and had been informed by telegraph of 
their flight to that place, or whether it was an acci- 
dent, I never knew, but, as a matter of fact, when 
they stepped off the cars in that city he was await- 
ing them, and with police aid compelled Elsie to 
return with him to Buffalo. Both Adams and Elsie 
insisted that they had been married before leaving 
Buffalo, but as neither could produce proof nor cer- 
tificate, and as the time of her leaving home in the 
day and their arrival in the evening at Cleveland 
would indicate they barely had time to catch the 
train they arrived upon, young Hallock refused to 
believe their story. Looking upon the whole affair 
as something from which Elsie had been rescued in 
time to save her reputation, the family had hastened 
to Europe with Elsie to remove her from Adams’ 
influence. But now he presented the indubitable 
proofs of marriage. 

“ Whatever there was of dilemma, and to the great 
disgust of the Hallock family, I promptly disposed 
of by asserting my satisfaction with the prior claims 
of Mr. Adams and by insisting that the previous 
marriage made mine invalid. It was plain to see 
where Elsie’s heart was. If Adams was willing to 
take her after due explanation, and in knowledge, I, 
who had never pretended to a passion for the girl, 
was satisfied that she should go to him. I had sense 



WIFED, NOT WEDDED. 


27 


enough to compel all, including Elsie and Adams, 
to make written statements, duly sworn to, setting 
forth the exact facts. It was about the only sensi- 
ble thing I did in the whole miserable affair.” 

“ I have just spent six months with Adams. His 
story agrees with yours in all essential particulars.” 

This was the only comment Mr. Magrane made 
on Trescotte’s story. 

After a period of silence, during which Trescotte 
waited for him, he spoke. “ Adams consulted me 
as to his own position in the matter three days ago. 
A new phase of this tangle was made known to him 
less than a year ago. A more complicated case 
never came under my review. I can reach no other 
conclusion than that Adams never was married to 
Miss Hallock.” 

“Ah!” 

Trescotte was surprised, and looked to Magrane 
to continue. The lawyer returned the look without 
speaking until the silence became embarrassing to 
both. It was the lawyer who broke it. 

“You do not seem to appreciate the weight of 
that remark.” 

“ I certainly do,” returned Trescotte, brushing the 
ashes from his cigar. “ It is very hard upon Mrs. — 
Miss — well, Elsie. I sympathize with her deeply. 
If weak and deficient in judgment, I think she was a 
well-meaning girl, and she certainly loved Adams. 
It is hard for her to find at the end of all these 
years, though wedded she is not a wife.” 

“ But she is a wife,” persisted Magrane. 




































- 

































, * • . 



























28 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HLM? 


Puzzled by the lawyer’s apparent contradiction, 
Trescotte turned inquiring eyes upon him. 

“ She is” — Magrane hesitated to inflict the blow — 
“ your wife.” 

The blood left Trescotte’s face so quickly that 
Magrane thought for a moment he would topple 
over, but Trescotte cried out fiercely : 

“ And Dorothy ? ” 

Mr. Magrane turned from him with a hopeless 
gesture. 












- 



















































































CHAPTER IV. 


A GIRL BECOMES A WOMAN. 

Mr. Magrane’s gesture was eloquent. 

Trescotte asked no further questions, but sat up- 
right and rigid, his face expressionless. 

The silence was so long that Mr. Magrane felt he 
must do or say something to relieve the strain. 
Mental suffering he had often witnessed ; it was 
incidental to the practice of his profession. Within 
the year he had assisted in the unmasking of one of 
his own profession — a man of the highest social 
standing, whose punishment was more in the dis- 
grace of exposure than in the sentence of imprison- 
ment. In all these cases exposure had been antici- 
pated and there was a sort of preparation for it. 
But in the case of Trescotte, revelation had come 
without even the suspicion of its possible occur- 
rence. 

“ Of course,” he said trying to assume an advisory 
tone, “ in view of all the circumstances, the charge 
of bigamy against you cannot be maintained.” 

A faint gesture from Trescotte warned the lawyer 
that he was on the wrong tack; that Trescotte 
gave no thought to himself, but to the deplorable — 
the dreadful position of Dorothy. 


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30 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM ? 

The recognition of this and the mockery of sym- 
pathy silenced Mr. Magrane. Yet he felt that the 
man who sat so rigid and motionless • must be 
stirred into action, so he finally determined to tell 
Trescotte the story as told him by Adams, believing 
that it must quicken the stricken man into thought. 
He began, but apparently without securing Tres- 
cotte’s attention. 

From this recital it appeared that Adams, less 
than a year previous, had learned that the civil 
magistrate who had married Elsie Hallock and 
himself, on the morning of their elopement, had been 
removed from office for misdeeds the day previous, 
and therefore had no authority to perform the 
function. Whether he was aware of it at the time 
did not appear, but a somewhat languid conscience 
had, after the lapse of eight years, moved him to go 
to Adams and tell him the truth. Magrane was 
disposed to believe that it was less a matter of con- 
science than a belief, on hearing that Adams and 
Elsie were separated, that his information would 
have value to Adams and consequently money value 
to himself. The separation was a fact. Though 
Adams had condoned the five months Elsie had 
lived with Trescotte, when Elsie’s first born came 
into the world, and its paternity in the nature of 
things must be ascribed to Trescotte, those five 
months rose up between Elsie and Adams to the 
destruction of their domestic peace. When Adams 
and her father, who had in time become reconciled 
to his son-in-law, quarreled over a joint investment, 




A GIRL BECOMES A WOMAN. 31 

the final result of the quarrel was that Elsie left 
Adams and went to her father’s house and care. 
There had been other children born to Elsie, and 
considerable property had accumulated, in the 
administration of which there had been some diffi- 
culty and embarrassment so long as Elsie was 
under her father’s influence. Adams had brooded 
nearly a year over this discovery of his invalid 
marriage, confiding in no one, until being thrown 
into close relations with Magrane, and gaining con- 
fidence in the lawyer, he had taken counsel of him. 
Thus it was that the lawyer had learned of Tres- 
cotte’s plight and of the invalidity of the marriage 
just contracted. 

The lawyer’s story had the intended effect. 

“ My — Dorothy must be told,” said Trescotte. 

“ She must not be kept in ignorance,” emphati- 
cally declared Magrane. “ It is your duty to tell 
her, and at once.” 

“I can’t, I can’t! God help me, I can’t! You 
will tell her.” 

There was such pathos in Trescotte’s pleading, 
that Magrane, who had not contemplated such a 
duty, and shrank from it when suggested, at last 
consented. 

“ If it is to be done,” he said rising briskly, “ it 
should be done at once.” 

He waited for Trescotte to join him, but the poor 
fellow was loath to go. 

“ I know,” said Magrane sympathetically, “ what 
a blow this is to you. I would have averted it if I 




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3 2 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HLM ? 

could, but having learned it there was no other 
course open to me. You must see it in that 
light.” 

“ Yes, yes, yes,” replied Trescotte, putting out his 
hand and taking that of Magrane’s warmly. “ But 
Dorothy ! ” 

“It will be very wrong not to reveal it to her. 
She must know.” 

Trescotte yielded, leading the way to the hotel at 
which they were stopping. 

As they entered Mrs. Trescotte’s apartments, a 
glance at her husband’s face was sufficient to tell 
Dorothy that her forebodings were realized. What 
had occurred ? With a cry of alarm she swept 
across the room to Trescotte, who put out to her a 
trembling arm and averted his face. 

She turned to Magrane fiercely. 

“ What have you been doing ?” she demanded. 
“I?” 

It seemed to him that Dorothy charged all of 
Trescotte’s distress to him, and he resented it as an 
injustice. Before he could say more, Trescotte 
spoke, his voice weak and unsteady. 

“ Dorothy,” he said, “ Mr. Magrane has some- 
thing to tell you. It is I who should do it, but 
I have neither the courage nor the power. Mr. 
Magrane has mercifully consented to do it for me.” 

Dorothy looked from one to the other, deeply 
impressed and much frightened. 

Trescotte led her across the room, seating her in 
a low chair. Bringing another into close relation 























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A GIRL BECOMES A WOMAN. 


33 


he motioned to Magrane to occupy it, and without 
further word went out of the room. 

Magrane did not find it easy to begin his revela- 
tion. When he did, a fine instinct warned him to 
tell the tale baldly, fact for fact, without sympathy 
for the woman before him. 

He had a listener who was breathless in her atten- 
tion, who followed the development step by step 
with burning eyes, who made no comments, who 
asked no questions, who showed no traces of 
emotion, except in her rapid transitions of expres- 
sion, and these, skillful as he was, Magrane could 
not interpret. 

When he had finished Dorothy asked almost 
sternly in her intensity : 

“ Have you told me all ? ” 

“ Everything ! Without reservation.” 

“ And you believe Harry — my husband to be 
without blame ? ” 

“ Entirely so.” 

His answer seemed to give Dorothy such satis- 
faction that the idea crept into Magrane’s mind 
that apprehension for Trescotte had been her only 
concern, and that she did not realize her own 
position. 

She sat with her hands clasped upon her knees 
and her head bent in deep thought, so profound as 
to seem to be oblivious of the lawyer’s presence. 

Magrane studied her. He noted the symmetrical 
head, the waving brown hair with its reddish tinge, 
the beautiful, delicate lines of her profile, the firm 






34 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


yet passionate turn of her red lips, the perfect com- 
plexion, now paler than usual, the quivering nostrils, 
and the beautiful brown eyes. Those eyes baffled 
him — deep in color and rapid in play, but inscrut- 
able in their expression. He, who prided himself 
on reading the human face as an open book, con- 
fessed himself at fault. All he could determine 
was, that it was the face of a soul that could love 
deeply and passionately. Her thoughts he could 
not read, nor analyze the emotions by which she 
was swayed. He could see, however, that she, who 
was facing a ruined life, was under marvelous control. 

He thought, as he studied her, that she was the 
stronger of the two, and in this, her trial, would 
follow the dictates of her own conscience, and not 
be swayed from them. 

Dorothy at length roused herself and asked : 

“ Where is my husband?” 

There was aggressiveness in the emphasis she 
gave to the pronoun, and the thought again 
occurred to Magrane that she did not realize her 
position, so he said : 

“ The situation is a grave one ; the complications 
are the most singular of any case I have ever had 
under review,” — the phrase was a favorite one with 
him — “and the injuries fall most heavily upon those 
least able to bear them, that is in the view of the 
world.” 

“ Yes,” Dorothy replied simply. 

Magrane thought he was not understood yet, so 
he continued: 



























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A GIRL BECOMES A WOMAN . 35 

“ I mean the two women involved — yourself and 
Mrs. Adams.” 

He hesitated over the name to apply to the 
other woman. 

Dorothy looked up sharply, and replied : 

“Yes, for Mrs. Adams, separated from her hus- 
band and with her children.” 

Magrane began to doubt his powers of expres- 
sion when he found he had signally failed to make 
clear that the woman who for eight years or more 
had lived with Adams as his wife was not Mrs. 
Adams, but Mrs. Trescotte. Yet he shrank from 
delivering the direct blow that would awaken 
Dorothy to the fact he wanted her to comprehend. 
He sought another method. 

“My statement of fact is ended,” he said. “To 
advise is my profession. Though I am Mr. Tres- 
cotte’s counsel, yet I can serve you in the same 
capacity.” 

The look Dorothy gave him was swift and 
searching. 

“Ah?” Her ejaculation conveyed no meaning 
to him. 

“ I presume you will return to-day to your father. 
Command me in any way you may desire.” 

“ Return to my father ? ” 

She repeated the words slowly, with a wondering 
expression in her eyes. 

“ Yes,” replied Magrane, “ you see, you are not 
now legally the wife of Mr. Trescotte.” 

The first expression of pain he had yet noted 


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36 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


swept over her face so deep and poignant, that he 
regretted he had used so little delicacy in forcing 
her position to her attention. 

At this moment Trescotte, who without comfort 
had been pacing the long corridor, entered the room. 
Dorothy sprang from her seat, crossed rapidly to 
him, and laying both her hands upon his, looked 
up into his face, asking : 

“ Harry, is it your wish to be rid of me ? ” 

It flashed across the suspicious lawyer mind of 
Magrane that she thought she was the victim of 
an intrigue. 

Such was not the thought of Trescotte. He saw 
what the lawyer did not see : lifted brown eyes 
shining with love of him. Though Magrane was there, 
though Dorothy was not his wife, though he had no 
rights, he embraced her passionately as he murmured: 

“Wish? The mere thought of separation has 
broken my heart ! ” 

Dorothy freed herself sufficiently to turn a 
triumphant face to Magrane. 

Why should the lawyer have accepted that 
triumphant look as a challenge? Yet he did, for 
going to Trescotte, he said: 

“ I ask that you leave me for a moment or two 
with — this lady ? ” 

Dorothy did not fail to note that the lawyer had 
avoided speaking of her as Trescotte’s wife, and she 
resented it, as was plainly seen by the flash of her 
eyes. She faced Magrane, as for battle, as Tres- 
cotte passed into the adjoining room. 











































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A GIRL BECOMES A WOMAN. 


37 


“ I conceive it to be my duty,” began Magrane 
sternly, “ a duty I owe Mr. Trescotte, you, per- 
haps society, to point out plainly to you your 
position.” 

Dorothy slightly inclined her head, but whether 
she intended it as permission to proceed, or whether 
in token of her understanding of his meaning, he 
could not determine, but he did not fail to perceive 
in her manner something which made him wish he 
had not taken so superior a tone with her. 

“ I have the profoundest sympathy for you,” he 
went on to say, with more deference. “ Your situ- 
ation is not only distressing, but so far as I am 
informed, without parallel. Mr. Trescotte told you 
.and your father of his former relation before he 
entered into engagement with you. He told you 
then what he and everybody party to the affair 
believed to be the truth. His conduct ” 

“ It is needless to discuss Mn Trescotte’s part in 
this affair,” she interrupted to say. “ His conduct is 
blameless. Please confine yourself to my position.” 

Magrane felt that her antagonistic attitude was 
due to his own manner, but he went on stolidly 
determined : 

“ I address myself to that,” he said with a bow. 
“ The marriage between Miss Elsie Hallock and Mr. 
Adams being invalid, of necessity the subsequent 
marriage of Miss Hallock to Mr. Trescotte, being 
duly performed, is valid.” 

Dorothy winced, but continued to look him 
steadily in the eyes. 




38 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


“ And consequently, the ceremony of your mar- 
riage to Mr. Trescotte is invalid — as if it had not 
taken place. You have no right to the name of 
Trescotte.” 

“ That is the view of the law? ” asked Dorothy. 

“ Of the law,” he acquiesced ; “ and, as you will 
find, of society, using that term as you best know 
it.” 

Society! The word summoned up the vision of 
her mother. 

“That being the case,” continued Magrane, “ you 
are not the wife of Henry Trescotte, and cannot 
remain with him, without serious results to your 
own reputation — without loss of your own place in 
society.” 

Dorothy did not seem to be as much affected by 
this statement as Magrane had expected. 

“ Is it not lost already?” she asked. 

Somewhat startled out of his self-complacency on 
finding how well she realized her position, the 
lawyer hesitated before replying. 

“ It certainly has been changed.” 

“ Lost !” she said imperatively. “Is it not? You 
say you speak of my position. Be frank. Society 
— the world in which I have always moved — is cruel 
to women. It forgives mistakes before it does 
misfortunes. Though I am blameless — will the 
world accept me ? ” 

“ I think,” said Magrane evasively, “ your world 
will sympathize with you.” 

“ How ? By regarding me as tainted — by closing 






A GIRL BECOMES A WOMAN. 


39 


its doors against me. Why ? Because I have been 
unfortunate, though I am neither wropg nor vicious. 
To my world there is no difference between myself, 
the victim of a misfortune, and the young girl who 
has weakly and basely yielded to the tempter, the 
victim of her own passions. That is my position.” 

This young girl, barely twenty, puzzled the astute 
lawyer. Had he not been a witness of that brief 
scene with Trescotte he would have declared that 
she was a glittering block of ice ; therefore he con- 
cluded it was an exhibition of marvelous self-con- 
trol, so calm and emotionless did she seem to be. 
It never occurred to this astute man of the world 
that he was a witness of the processes of an evolu- 
tion. Before he could reply she went on : 

“ There are things which with all your wisdom you 
cannot comprehend — things only a woman can, and 
I cannot tell you. But there is something dearer to 
a woman, whether the Church has pronounced its 
sacrament over her or not, than reputation or life, 
and if this is struck at, she will resent it with all the 
power she has. At this, my world strikes madly, 
and it will strike at mine when it is mine. You 
instruct me as to my position? You have not the 
slightest comprehension of it.” 

There was no doubt as to her emotion now. He 
did not understand her meaning, but he felt her 
withering contempt. 

“ I meant to advise,” he replied rather humbly, to 
his own annoyance, “ your immediate return to 
your father. It is a duty you owe to yourself.” 



40 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

“ A duty ; yes,” — she was calm and emotionless 
again. “ I know my position ; now, I must learn 
my duty.” 

“You should not permit your affection for Mr. 
Trescotte to cloud your judgment,” he went on, re- 
gaining self-confidence. 

“ No,” she replied, “ I must not permit my judg- 
ment to be clouded.” 

Her manner irritated him, and he continued with 
asperity in his tones. 

“ Nor should you permit the affection of Mr. 
Trescotte to influence you to any other course.” 

“ Mr. Trescotte would not advise me to other 
than the right course.” Her words were sharp and 
decisive. 

“ Then,” he said with a bow, feeling strongly that 
if there had been a battle, the trophies of victory 
were not his, “when I have pointed out that you 
cannot remain under the same roof with Mr. Tres- 
cotte to-night, though you occupy different apart- 
ments, without incurring censure, my advice is 
done.” 

Dorothy, bowing to the lawyer, went to the bed- 
room door and said : 

“ Harry, Mr. Magrane is going.” 

Trescotte entered in time to hear Dorothy 
say : 

“ Mr. Trescotte and myself, together, will deter- 
mine our respective duties.” 

“ You will see Mr. Courtenay on your return and 
tell him?” asked Trescotte anxiously. 





































































































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A GIRL BECOMES A WOMAN. 


41 


“Yes,” replied Magrane ; “ to-night, when I hope 
and expect to know his daughter has returned to 
him.” 

He cast a significant glance at Dorothy. 

As he left the room, Trescotte turned wonder- 
ingly to his wife. 















. 



























CHAPTER V. 


EVOLUTION. 

FROM the moment Magrane had revealed to him 
the complication in which he and Dorothy were 
involved, Trescotte’s first thought had been for her. 
His own position he did not think of, not even of 
the distress and deep grief their separation would 
entail. That such separation would be the inevita- 
ble and immediate result of the revelation to 
Dorothy, he was certain. This conclusion was not 
so much the result of his estimate of Dorothy's 
character as it was of his own training and 
education, and his instant recognition of the 
influences of education, training, and association 
upon all girls of Dorothy’s ilk and rank in the social 
world. It is true that Trescotte had no fixed ideas 
upon the subject ; that he had never given thought 
to questions of relations of the sexes. So, when 
this social problem was suddenly presented to him, 
in which he was a factor himself, he took the views 
already made for him and applied them to its solu- 
tion, so far as they would go. Dorothy was not his 
wife ; girls in the walk of life of Dorothy do not 
live with men who are not their husbands ; there- 
fore, Dorothy would not continue to live with him. 


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E VOL UTION. 


43 


It was simple and fundamental logic. Simulta- 
neously with the appreciation of the horrible fact 
that Dorothy was not his wife, was the conclusion 
that she would immediately depart from him, and 
that in honor he could not raise a hand to stay her. 

Such further thought as he was capable of in his 
distraught condition, was given to Dorothy’s dread- 
ful position — her life ruined by means of which he 
was the instrument. And what was maddening, he 
could see no way out, nothing that could be done 
for her. He was not deficient in either physical or 
moral courage, but he shrank from being a witness 
of the anguish Dorothy would naturally exhibit 
when she learned what her position in the world 
was. That was the reason why he had asked 
Magrane to tell her. Had he loved her less, he 
could have told her himself. He thought, too, and 
he did not shrink from it, that in her first grief she 
would reproach him, nor would he blame her if she 
did. He knew Dorothy well enough to know that, 
after the first wild burst, she would do him the 
justice of admitting that what he had done was 
done in ignorant innocence. 

When, then, after the door closed upon Mr. 
Magrane, Dorothy came to him without words of 
reproach, with sober yet pitying face, and laid her 
hands upon his arm, looking up into his eyes, he was 
bewildered. He thought Magrane had failed to do 
as he had promised. 

“ You have heard the whole of the dreadful 
story?” he asked. 



44 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


“ The whole of the dreadful story,” she replied. 

“ And you know what it all means to you ? ” 

“ I know what it all means to me.” 

There was no flinching in her looks or demeanor. 

“You have no words of blame or censure for 
me?” 

“ None; except that you sent Mr. Magrane to tell 
me the story instead of coming yourself.” 

This was so different from what he had made sure 
he would meet that he was confused. He passed 
his hand over his eyes as if he would brush away 
the mists that seemed to obscure his senses. 

“ Come,” she said, as she took his hand and led 
him to the chair she had occupied when listening to 
Magrane, gently urging him into it. Then bringing 
a low stool, which she placed at his feet, she seated 
herself on it, leaning her arms upon his knees. 
Looking up into his eyes, as if she would search the 
innermost recesses of his mind, she said : 

“ In this dreadful crisis of our lives, you and I 
must find out what our duty is — our duty to each 
other, to ourselves.” 

He laid a trembling hand upon her head and 
gently stroked her soft silken hair. 

“ I have ruined your life,” was the reply he made. 

“ No,” she said soberly and quietly ; “ it is for 
you to decide now whether you will ruin it or not.” 

Her manner was so calm, her mood so quiet, and 
she was in such possession of herself, that, failing to 
comprehend her, Trescotte s confusion was increased 
rather than lessened. 




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EVOLUTION. 


45 


Unconsciously he expressed a thought aloud. 

“ It has worked a great change in you.” 

“ Yes,” she replied, almost without emotion, “a 
great change. I am a woman now ; not the girl 
you parted from after breakfast.” 

Trescotte’s despair and distress was pictured on 
his face. She took his hand in her own and intui- 
tively reading his mind, said : 

“ It is your thought of me that is distressing you 
— of my future, my position in the world, of what 
people will think of me, of what I fear they will 
think of me. Have you no thought of yourself? ” 

“Myself?” There was contempt in his tone. 
“ What of myself ? What is there, except the loss 
of your love and of your life to mine, I cannot easily 
brush aside ? ” 

Dorothy pressed the hand she was stroking. 

“ I do not reproach you.” 

“ No. Were you to show emotion, I would be 
relieved. It is your calmness that distresses me. 
As you are not wanting in emotion, it must be the 
calmness of despair.” 

“You are much mistaken,” she replied firmly. 
“ I do not despair. Long before Mr. Magrane had 
finished the story, I had appreciated it in all its 
relations, had thought it all out, and determined 
upon my duty.” 

Trescotte looked at her inquiringly. 

“ There is nothing for which you could be blamed. 
Could you have anticipated this; had you had 
knowledge which you concealed ; had you even 

















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4 6 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


a suspicion of these troubles, and wooed and won me, 
the case would have been different — very different. 
So,” she continued, with a charming air of enforcing 
a logical proposition, “ if you were not to blame in 
coming to me, you are not to blame for the situa- 
tion in which we find ourselves. You say you have 
ruined my life. Whether you have or not belongs 
to another part of our talk, and will be answered 
when we have finished.” 

Distraught as he was, Trescotte did not fail to 
note, now that the deeper powers of her mind 
were called into play, how orderly and methodical 
were Dorothy’s thoughts. 

“ But,” she went on earnestly, “ assume for a 
moment that ruin has come to me, no one is to 
blame for it. It was an accident — just as the loss 
of our property or of our sight would be.” 

“You are very generous,” he said. 

“ No,” she replied promptly ; “ it is not gen- 
erosity, it is only justice, and no more than the law 
of the land would mete out to you. That is what 
Mr. Magrane says. And you say that it is only 
important to you as it takes me out of your life. 
So we can dismiss you from our talk.” 

“ Then it all comes back to you — your future — 
your ruined life!” he cried. 

“ Yes ; it all comes back to me,” she looked up 
into his face, smiling adorably. “ I am ready to 
talk of my position. The first thing is, what is 
your duty to me.” 

“ My first duty to you ?” he repeated, somewhat 










































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EVOLUTION. 


47 


bewildered and taking refuge in a commonplace. 
“ It is to see that you are shielded from misappre- 
hension as to our relations.” 

A shade of disappointment flitted over Dorothy’s 
face. It was not the answer she desired. Trescotte 
noted it, without understanding it. 

“And what else?” she demanded with a sugges- 
tion of that imperative manner which he had found 
so charming in the days of their courtship. 

“ And to secure your happiness,” he answered. 

“That is better. And how is that to be 
secured ? ” 

Trescotte was not so ready with the reply. It 
was so easy to say what should be done, and so 
hard to suggest the means. She waited for a reply. 

“ Well,” he said after a little thought, “your 
position is, that you have lived with me as my 
wife, though not wedded. You entered the 
relation under the sanction of law and church. 
The world knows that. Therefore up to this 
time, it cannot blame you. But now you have 
knowledge that I was not free to marry you — that 
you could not enter into the relation of wife to me. 
Therefore, every moment spent with me after that 
knowledge will lay you open to censure — to the 
world’s condemnation.” 

“In short,” she said, forcing the conclusion he 
avoided in terms, “ up to the present moment I am 
an honest woman, but if I spend another night with 
you I will be a woman with a lost reputation.” 

Trescotte turned his head away in deep pain. 




































































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4 8 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HLM ? 


Such was the dreadful truth — and none the less 
dreadful because she looked it in the face so 
bravely. 

Dorothy pulled his face to her gently, as she 
asked : “ And your conclusion is ? ” 

“There is but one conclusion,” he said hopelessly. 
“We must separate. You must gain all there is to 
be gained, by instant separation.” 

“ What then ? ” 

“ Our Intercourse must end, so that the world 
shall have no opportunity to censure.” 

“Will that secure my happiness?” 

This time Trescotte did not reply so promptly. 
Happiness to either seemed so far away. “It is 
perhaps a step in that direction,” he replied. 

Dorothy averted her head, slightly bending it in 
thought, the while, however, she gently stroked his 
hand. Trescotte did not disturb her, but gave him- 
self up to the thought of how hard it was to leave 
her, and that nothing but an ardent desire for her 
well being could make him consent to a moment’s 
separation. 

Suddenly she lifted her head and shot a question 
at him that seemed almost an echo of his own 
thought: “Does your heart indicate this course?” 

“ My heart ? ” he exclaimed, deeply pained. “ Oh, 
how can such a thought be suggested to you ? No, 
no ; not my heart. It is the coldest judgment I 
can summon.” 

Her eyes lighted up with pleasure. 

“And what would separation do for me ?” 











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EVOLUTION. 


49 


Trescotte hesitated in his reply, looking very 
hopeless. 

“ You know/’ she added, 11 all this is very serious 
to me, and I want to know all about it.” 

“Why — why,” stammered Trescotte, not really 
knowing what it would do, for he had not looked 
beyond the separation, “ why, at least, it will show 
the world that you have cut off all relations as soon 
as your knowledge made them improper to you.” 

“ Ah, yes, ‘ the world.’ ” She gave to the phrase 
a peculiar inflection which Trescotte could not 
understand. “ In other words, if I leave you now, 
I shall have secured so much respectability as the 
world will grant to one placed as I am.” 

Trescotte acquiesced by a sign, so pained by this 
evidence of Dorothy’s recognition of the limitations 
of that respectability that he could not speak. 
For the first time he felt a self-pity that he, of all 
persons, was compelled to force that recognition 
upon her. She went on remorselessly, as he could 
not help thinking. 

“ And if I do leave you now, shall I be secured 
in the old position I held before? Will the doors 
of all the houses be opened to me that were open 
before ? Shall I have the same friendships and 
companionships? Shall I be permitted to associate 
with the young girls as I used to do ? ” 

Trescotte could not answer. She had entered 
upon a field he had not explored, except vaguely 
under the cover of the phrase “ her ruined life.” 

“ Or,” she went on relentlessly, “ will it not be, 
















































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5 ° SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

that though I fly from you as if there were con- 
tagion in your arms, that I shall be a subject of 
gossip and insolent sympathy, until the topic is for- 
gotten in the misfortune of somebody else ; dis- 
cussed at teas, to which I am not invited, and dis- 
sected at dinners, where no plate is laid for me ? 
Will it not be said that I could have done no less 
to save my respectability, by the very people who 
will be careful not to leave a card for me when they 
call upon mamma ? Will not everybody in my world 
say that I must not expect to take my old place, 
but must withdraw from public sight and contact ? ” 

“ Is not your view extreme ?” protested the har- 
rowed Trescotte. 

“I think not,” she replied thoughtfully. “Was 
not that the fate of Mrs. Hughcombe, whose hus- 
band left her, for reasons no one yet knows? Was 
not Mrs. Edgebury sent to Coventry because her 
husband was killed in a quarrel with Col. Birney, 
which grew out of Mr. Edgebury’s charge that the 
Colonel was too marked in his attentions to his 
wife and had compromised her, although it was 
shown at the trial that Colonel Birney was merely 
seeking her good offices to bring about a reconcilia- 
tion between himself and his wife ? Well, let us 
assume I have done what you suggest — what the 
world, my world, commands, will not the fate of 
these women be mine ? Shall I not be what they 
are — women with a past?” 

Trescotte, heart torn by this implacable dissec- 
tion of her position, cried out: 






































- 





















2*1 55 










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52 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


never let go from her grasp, “ if there was happiness 
in my life before I met you, all that brought it to 
me would be denied me. Since you have come into 
my life, my chief happiness has been in you, and 
has come from you, and that too would be denied 
me. So the conclusion is, that to do my duty as the 
world sees it, is to gain a respectability which has 
neither privileges nor rewards — at the sacrifice of 
all my happiness.” 

The mists suddenly cleared from Trescotte’s brain. 
He not only understood now, but he saw clearly the 
future of Dorothy, with its dividing roads. 

“ Dorothy ! ” 

He sprang from his seat, lifting her with him, 
and with an arm about her waist, he turned her face 
to the light that he might read plainly its expres- 
sions. 

“You see,” she said, looking up into the eyes 
bending over her so searchingly, “ I have had such 
happiness in the thought of that beautiful home 
you have builded for me. And I have dreamed so 
happily of our lives within it — that home which 
even now is awaiting us.” 

“ But it is yours. I gave it to you.” 

The smile with which she answered him was 
ineffably divine. 

“ Would it be my home and you not there ? ” 

Trescotte, drew her closely to him, and in a voice 
low but laden with passion, asked : 

“You would give up the world for me?” 

“ If I leave you the world will have given me up 




































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EVOLUTION. 


53 


by the time I shall have reached my father’s 
house.” 

“ You would forsake friends — family? ” 

“ Have I not already vowed, in the most sacred 
place, to keep me only unto you, so long as we both 
shall live?” 

Trescotte folded Dorothy close in his arms in an 
ecstacy of resolve that seemed to him like a new 
sacrament. But again Society loomed up on his 
vision — Society with its ethics and prejudices, too 
strong in its influences from his cradle to be lightly 
disregarded. Gently disengaging Dorothy, he took 
her by the hands and, holding her from him, asked : 

“ Do you know what this involves?” 

“ I have thought it all out.” 

“The world will condemn you.” 

“ It will shun me, when it does not condemn.” 

“ It will take from you that respect it will other- 
wise give you.” 

“ But happiness will be mine.” 

“ Society will ignore you — insult you.” 

“ I can ignore Society. It has not a monoply of 
happiness.” 

Trescotte silently held her hands, thinking pro- 
foundly and rapidly. His spirit was not timid, nor 
his love weak, and that was why he had the courage 
to think of and for her. He saw the yawning gulf 
between the life Dorothy had lived and the one she 
was so willing to enter upon. He was looking into 
the mind of the Dorothy who had passed through 
the ordeal of ostracism and renunciation, to find if 





















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54 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


she would not then cry out against those who had 
not protected her against herself. 

He let her hands slowly fall from his own, stag- 
gered by the fearful thought, and turned away from 
her, saying : 

“ The sacrifice is too vast ; it cannot be, it cannot 
be ! ” 

He had taken but a step or two, when she was 
beside him with her hand upon his shoulder. He 
halted and listened to her words, thrilling in their 
persuasion : 

“ Do not ruin my life ! ” 

The afternoon concert began on the veranda 
beneath. The solemn melody of the Lohengrin 
Wedding March floated in through the open win- 
dows. The tenderness in Dorothy’s face deepened 
as she repeated the words : 

“ Entreat me not to leave thee, for whither thou 
goest I will go ; and where thou lodgest I will 
lodge.” 

He caught her in his arms, crying: 

“ Until death do us part.” 

The last train for New York was pulling out of 
the station when Mr. Magrane stepped on board. 
He had waited until the last moment watching the 
gate through which travelers pass through to the 
train. 

Dorothy was not one of those who passed 
through. 




















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BOOK II.— DECISION. 


CHAPTER I. 

MARRIAGE A LA MODE. 

That Hilda Courtenay and Hermann Waldemar 
were engaged became known upon the plighting 
of troth. No more startling and sensational news 
could have been given currency in Newport. There 
was, to be sure, an unusually large crop of Italian 
princes, English earls, French counts, and German 
barons, but where the assurance of the reality of 
their titles had not been established, the poverty of 
their purses had. Therefore with his noble connec- 
tions in Germany ; his hundreds of thousands in 
hand and millions in prospect ; his cottage in New- 
port, mansion in New York, and villa at Tuxedo; 
his stable of winning blood at Sheepshead ; and his 
yacht in the offing, young Waldemar was the most 
desirable parti of the season. 

Sore and bitter was the disappointment in fifty 
households of that superior and exclusive commu- 
nity when their young women, who had been in 
training all the spring, learned that Hilda Courtenay 
had been placed first, and the rest nowhere. It was 
the disappointment of ambition, not of affection. 


55 


I 


56 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

No doubt, with their anguish was mixed a little 
fear of those acrid stings the matron mothers would 
inflict when reproaching their dear daughters for 
their want of success, calmly ignoring that these 
failures were quite as much due to their own lack of 
skill in manipulation — a skill which Mrs. Courtenay 
had exercised to the confusion and humiliation of 
her dear friends. 

In the retirement of her own boudoir, Mrs. 
Courtenay, with pleasure and satisfaction, reviewed 
her triumph. It was her triumph because it was 
the result of her skill. Hilda might flatter herself 
that it was her own charms that had brought Walde- 
mar to her feet. Mrs. Courtenay was content that 
her daughter should remain in that blissful assur- 
ance, but that lady knew better ; she knew only too 
well with what difficulty the young man had been 
brought to book ; with what cleverness she had pre- 
cipitated the situation from which there was no 
escape except through proposal. Nor did she in 
her indulgence of a natural elation fail to appreciate 
that the assurance of security would not be hers 
until she had seen the two young people safely 
married. She could not deny Hilda the credit of 
being a most excellent and pliable instrument. 
That young woman had beauty, though not of so 
refined a type as that of Dorothy’s ; and an air of 
fine distinction, which, if not of the dignity of her 
elder sister, yet, when tricked out for the course, 
was quite impressive. But she possessed that in 
which Dorothy was sadly deficient, a realizing sense 





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MARRIAGE A LA MODE . 


57 


of her duty to the station of life into which she was 
born, and she was not cursed, as Dorothy was, with 
ideas. All this made her ductile in the hands of 
her mother ; and skillful her mother was — an artist, 
rather than a mechanic — an artist who knew how to 
conceal art by art. 

Not the smallest part of the pleasure Mrs. Courte- 
nay derived from the contemplation of her triumph 
was in the knowledge that all her dear matron 
friends, who, in the rounds of pleasure of the next 
few days, would greet her with smiling congratula- 
tions, were now consumed with angry envy. With 
what never failing interest that trite reflection re- 
curs, that most of our joys would turn to dead 
ashes, could we not know that their possession was 
the cause of envy, distress, and mortification in 
others ! 

It may be supposed that this young Waldemar, 
over whom all this stir was made, was a very 
superior young man. But we of- that world which 
is much the larger have such differing ideas of 
superiority. John Brown, whose fifteen plays were 
damned, is compelled to look upon Alfred Barnes, 
whose seven plays were successful, as his superior; 
and if he doesn’t, the managers, whose opinions are 
decisive, do. Charlie Smith who pulls in a single 
skull race may not think Tom Notting his superior, 
but the crowd which applauded Tom as he shot 
over the line first thinks otherwise. The dignified 
professors who hand to Nathanial the laurel wreath 
evidently consider him superior to “ Baby” Elling, 

























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SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


58 

the quarter back, who on last Thanksgiving Day 
was carried off the grounds on the shoulders of as 
many of his admirers as could get under him. 
Young Sturdy, who is advancing rapidly in grasp- 
ing the essentials of the difficult problems of trans- 
portation, and is steadily promoted by his admiring 
board of directors, is not regarded by the wives and 
daughters of those directors as superior to young 
Brochulst, who is equally skillful at turning a corner 
with a tandem or a four-in-hand. We all have such 
different standards. I am disposed to believe that, 
if a jury of a hundred were picked, haphazard, 
from passers-by of Broadway, any fine day, and 
Waldemar were presented before it for judgment, 
he would be voted a very ordinary young man. 
Because the danger would be, a majority would 
not deem mansions, horses, yachts, and pros- 
pects of riches, virtues, but rather accessories, most 
convenient and wholly comfortable to possess. 
And there might be a few who would insist that 
morality had claims for consideration. If such an 
old-fashioned test were applied to young Waldemar, 
I am afraid the crown of superiority would be with- 
held by such a jury. Not that Waldemar did not 
‘pay his debts; his income provided against that 
vulgarity. He was honest in his dealings where 
money was concerned — strictly honorable, as was 
shown in the way he provided for the little girl 
whom he fiad persuaded to abandon her family and 
the six dollars a week she earned at Grabbies’ shop, 
when his affections were suddenly transferred, one 





















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MARRIAGE A LA MODE. 


59 


night at Foster and Vials, to a whirling divinity 
clothed in pink fleshings and multi-colored lights. 
Nor did he ever fail to pay his losses — and they 
were often heavy — at baccarat , after the dear Prince 
made that game fashionable. The men voted him 
a square fellow, who backed his horses to run with 
nerve, a straight-going sportsman at all the games, 
who devoted enough time to the business in which 
he was a partner to assure his father that he would 
succeed him with credit. With the women he was 
a model, for he dressed immaculately for every oc- 
casion, did not smoke on the top of his drag, nor 
show evidences at social gatherings of too many 
visits to the champagne table, and was so rich 
that he could give the woman he married every- 
thing her heart desired, and I ask, in all candor, as 
the world is now constituted, what more could be 
wished ? 

It was Tracey Harte, one of young Waldmar’s 
intimate friends, who gave the fact of the engage- 
ment to the world. He was making a round of 
calls, previous to his departure for Saratoga, where 
the racing was about to begin, and where his and 
Waldemar’s horses were to run. Mrs. Trevor-Alien 
received his first call. This was not because the 
Trevor-Alien cottage was naturally the first one he 
would pass as he sallied forth from his own roof, nor 
because familiarity with the Trevor-Alien menage 
assured him that the aged head thereof had reached 
that hour and state when a nap was a necessary 
preparation for dinner, but because this season 




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SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


Tracey affected Mrs. Trevor-Alien and made her the 
object of his attentive adoration. 

The young matron accepted these attentions 
neither as a tribute to her charms nor as a proof of 
his fascinations, but as a convenience, her husband 
having passed into that age and condition when he 
was neither useful nor obstructive. It was to the 
young matrons that Tracey devoted himself exclu- 
sively. The marriage ceremony, for him, invested 
the other sex with additional charms. The girl 
whose presence politeness only prevented him from 
ignoring, became at once, after leaving the altar 
where she had been breathing vows of devotion to 
a husband, an object to him of adoring interest. 
There was something dashing, reckless, “ demn it, 
don’t you know,” in this pursuit, that suggested pis- 
tols and fields of honor — the first of which he had 
never discharged and the other he would not know 
if he found himself upon it. Yet he lived in daily 
hopes of a scandalous gossip in which his name 
would be involved, and an affaire d' amour with a 
high-born, youthful matron, which he had never yet 
achieved, but which was his highest ambition. He 
had shown more o.f good taste, and less of good 
judgment in his selection of Mrs. Trevor-Alien, 
than usual. For bright and witty, she was gifted 
with rare powers of penetration which enabled 
her to read shrewdly the people who came within 
her ken. Tracey’s siege might have the exciting 
qualities of the chase, but it was destined to failure. 
She told him so, on the day in question. 








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MARRIAGE A LA MODE. 6 1 

“Tracey,” said that most extraordinary woman 
in response to a subtle compliment, the coinage of 
which had delayed his breakfast an hour, “ Tracey, 
it is great folly to make love to me.” 

The young man thought of something about 
folly and sweetness, but it did not take form in 
words quickly enough, for she went on : 

“ It is such a waste of your time.” 

He rose to the occasion : 

“ No time is wasted which is devoted to you,” he 
said most gallantly, and with his most ravishing 
smile. 

“ Nonsense,” laughed this most incomprehensi- 
ble of her sex. “ It is all wasted, from your stand- 
point. You’re a very nice boy, Tracey, and getting 
over your youth very commendably. I am willing 
to be your friend. But you must stop making love 
to me. I fall out of love much more quickly than 
I fall into it. Why, dear boy, I don’t remain in love 
long enough to serve the purpose of a single after- 
noon’s gossip.” 

“ Oh, I say, Mrs. Trevor-Alien,” protested Tracey, 
“you do yourself such injustice, you know.” 

“ Oh, no, dear boy,” she exclaimed with a quizzi- 
cal twinkle in her dancing blue eyes, “ but I am try- 
ing to do you justice. I want to be your friend. 
You see, Tracey, dear boy, while you are quite an 
adept at love-making, you have not reached that 
degree of perfection when you can make a woman 
forget her marriage vows. Perhaps I am all very well 
to practice on, but really, in view of the career you 


I 


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62 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


have marked out for yourself, I think I can best 
show my friendship by pointing out where you fail. 
There is no success for you in a career of gallantry 
until you learn to be earnest. It is like anything 
else in life, you must be in in earnest to succeed — 
really in earnest — you must really fall in love with 
the object of your attack. You never loved me, 
you know/’ 

“Ah, now, Mrs. Trevor-Alien,” stammered the 
poor youth, “ how can you say such cruel things, 
after all my devotion ? ” 

“ Because it is the truth. If you want to com- 
promise a woman, you must not only make her feel 
that you love her, but you must, in fact, love her. 
Whether she loves you, is immaterial ; better for 
your success that you sway her pride than her 
affections. As a course of preparatory training 
devote yourself to some single girl and fall seriously 
in love with her, with a view to marriage.” 

•“ Oh, now, Mrs. Trevor-Alien,” cried Tracey, 
utterly disgusted with the advice, which if followed 
would in his opinion take so much from his ton . 

“ Now there is Hilda Courtenay ” 

“ Oh, she’s gone,” interrupted the young man. 

“Gone? What do you mean ? ” 

“ Waldemar proposed last night and was accepted 
on the jump by the whole family.” 

“ Io triumphe /” cried the lady with a merry laugh. 
“ Dear Mamma Courtenay carries off the blue rib- 
bon again. Oh, the tears of -all the rest ! ” 

“ It’s dead luck, isn’t it?” asked Tracey, trying to 














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MARRIAGE A LA MODE . 


63 


follow her humor. “ She had a plater forced on 
her in Trescotte, and he turned out to be a winner. 
Now she’s caught the first favorite in the pools.” 

Mrs. Trevor-Alien, repeating this technical charac- 
terization of Mrs. Courtenay’s skill some hours later 
to certain mortified matrons, as a succinct summing 
up of the situation, rather than as an illustration of 
the proper use of language, sweetly and innocently 
added : 

“ Which makes it so difficult to understand 
whether it is love or well-doing in manipulation 
which is its own reward.” 

One of those perplexing remarks this perplexing 
young woman was given to. It was on this occa- 
sion also that she gave that celebrated bit of advice 
which was so admiringly quoted at the clubs the 
next winter. Mrs. Huntington, with three mar- 
riageable daughters still in stock, after a brief period 
of cogitation, emerged with the remark : 

“ Mrs. Courtenay has only one daughter left to 
provide for.” 

“ Pool your issues and divide the pot while the 
game is in your hands,” advised Mrs. Trevor-Alien. 
“Priscilla Courtenay can’t be chipped in for two 
years yet. Mamma Courtenay, with her skill, will 
be out of the game during that time. Tendre 
vos pariers, les mesdames .’* 

There are people who insist that they see a great 
deal of satirical wit in that speech, but all it sug- 
gests to me is an acquaintance with poker, Monte 
Carlo, and idiomatic French — three things I detest 



































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6 4 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

in women, especially the last, which I don’t under- 
stand, and under the cover of which such disagree- 
able things are said — I never know what until I get 
home and study the dictionary. But then I’m an 
old fogy. 

Dorothy learned of the engagement by letter 
from her mother which reached her while she was 
roaming about in the fullness of her own happy 
honeymoon. Though she quickly detected the note 
of triumph in her mother’s letter, yet she was sad- 
dened by the news. So little of the true caste 
spirit did she evince that she really fell into a medi- 
tation as to whether young Waldemar with his 
habits was the sort of man to make the wedded life 
of her sister happy. Dorothy was cursed with 
ideas. But she wrote a very pretty letter of con- 
gratulation to Hilda, telling her her troth brought 
new obligations to her life which she should study to 
comprehend ; and another quite as pretty to Walde- 
mar, whom she welcomed as a prospective brother-in- 
law, lightly hinting that the peace, honor, and happi- 
ness of the fsesh young life he was about to take 
into his keeping could only be secured by strict 
observance of the vows he would make at the altar 
side. Mrs. Courtenay laughingly put these letters 
away when they were given her to read with the 
remark : 

“ What a dear, delightful prig of a daughter 
Dorothy is ! ” 

This was three weeks before the dreadful revela- 
tions at Saratoga. 







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CHAPTER II. 


AN ECCENTRIC HONEYMOON. 

The Courtenay-Waldemar engagement was no 
longer a sensation in July. It was an accepted fact, 
and society had turned to other considerations. 
But a much greater sensation — one which also 
involved the Courtenay name — was in preparation. 
The first ripples of it were felt, curiously enough, by 
those whose only connection with that world which 
makes its habitat in Newport in the summer, is that 
of servitors, caretakers of the city houses it had 
abandoned for the season. 

One morning in July these people were much 
interested in a gray stone house in New York City, 
the windows of which looked out upon Central Park, 
and which had suddenly shown signs of life. It 
was not so much because the house was occupied, 
for it was current news in the neighborhood that it 
had been purchased and richly furnished by Henry 
Trescotte for the bride he had made in April, but 
because it was opened in July rather than in Octo- 
ber, as was the understanding. 

To enter a new house and put it upon a midwinter 
scale, with stable in complete array, in the hot 
summer month, when everybody who was anybody 
65 







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66 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


had fled the city, was, however satisfactory to the 
grocer and the butcher, erratic. Those whose con- 
tiguity gave them opportunity for observation, but 
whose social rank made them uncertain as to aristo- 
cratic procedure, when they saw Mr. and Mrs. Tres- 
cotte sauntering in the Park early in the morning, 
and driving together in the afternoon, concluded 
that it was fashion’s new caprice as to the honey- 
moon. Of one thing, however, they were in no 
doubt. A more loverlike husband than Mr. Tres- 
cotte no woman could wish ; and the man who did 
not adore the wife who received his attentions with 
such tenderness did not deserve the woman who had 
given her life to him. 

But little recked Trescotte and Dorothy what 
these people said or thought of them. It was 
neither to set a new fashion nor to gratify curiosity 
that they had deviated from the paths of convention. 
When these two young people had determined to 
their own satisfaction what their duty to themselves 
and each other was, they set about considering what 
sort of a life they would lead. It was in this dis- 
cussion that Trescotte made the discovery that in 
the determination they had reached they had by no 
means solved their problem. There was an ugly 
factor, of which they had taken no heed — that duty 
the world and society demanded as their due. In 
a moment of passionate exaltation they had sworn 
devotion anew and had determined to live for each 
other and each other alone, regardless of all opinions. 
But Trescotte, his mind now restored to its normal 





























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AN ECCENTRIC HONEYMOON. 6 7 

activity, saw that society not only was powerful, but 
had innumerable ways of punishing infractions of 
the laws it made, whether just or not. 

One thing was very clear to him. They must leave 
the hotel and Saratoga before their peculiar position 
became known. He knew, were that knowledge to 
become public property, that Dorothy would be 
subjected to the indignities of insolent curiosity and 
malevolent gossip from those who now were ser- 
vile, even, in their efforts to secure her recognition. 
He did not falter in the course they had chosen ; he 
felt neither remorse nor regret. Having cut the 
strings by which tradition and conventionality had 
bound him, when he first considered Dorothy's 
future, he was brave in his determination to face 
the world with her ; but it was with a full apprecia- 
tion of the spites and the cruelties of that world. 
He saw, and without flinching, that his stout heart 
and his strong right arm must ever be interposed 
between Dorothy and th'e world's numberless ways 
of insult. To shield her, to keep her even from 
knowledge of them, was to be henceforth and always 
the warfare of his life. He did not know to what 
extent Magrane had spread the knowledge he had 
acquired, nor how far malice might go in striking; 
it might even demand their retirement from the 
hotel. All this he thought the while Dorothy was 
nestled in his arms, content in the victory she had 
won, and happy in the sacrifice she had made. 

It seemed to him to be the wiser course to go 
abroad for a few years, but when, after Dorothy 



















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68 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM ? 


had agreed to leave Saratoga at once, he made this 
proposition, she firmly declared such a course to be 
impossible. 

“ What we have agreed upon,” she insisted, “ was 
so agreed because it seemed to us to be right — the 
only thing under the circumstances we «ould do. 
If anybody is wrong it is not us, it is society — the 
world — which, having made it possible for us to fall 
into this position, would, under an arbitrary law of 
its own making, punish us, who are innocent, by 
separation. No; if we go abroad, it will appear as 
if we had fled from the consequences of an evil we 
admitted. We must not confess what we do not 
intend, by running away.” 

Trescotte yielded to the inexorable logic that 
flight was confession. Moreover, he saw it was 
cowardice, and against that his soul revolted. 
Yet they must go somewhere, and the conditions 
would be the same wherever they went. So singu- 
larly strong are the influences of custom and habit, 
that it was with a start of surprise that he heard 
Dorothy, who had partly divined his thoughts, 
whisper : 

“ Let us go home.” 

It had not occurred to him that it was possible to 
reside in New York City in the summer months. 

Dorothy’s suggestion was the solution of the diffi- 
culties, but not of the problem. 

Mr. Magrane did not see Mr. Courtenay on the 
night of his return to New York, nor for several days 
thereafter. The Courtenay family were in Newport, 





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AN ECCENTRIC HONEYMOON. 69 

a fact he learned when he called at the residence, 
and which Trescotte and Dorothy might have told 
him had they not forgotton it in their agitation. 
Fearing, however, that they didn’t know it, he tele- 
graphed Dorothy that night, and returned to his 
snug bachelor quarters with the intention of writing 
the story to Mr. Courtenay. But when he sat down 
to do so he found difficulties. To merely inform 
her father that Dorothy was living with a man not her 
husband would be to convey false impressions ; and 
to recite the circumstances in detail was to engage 
upon more than one evening’s labor, and his stenog- 
rapher was not at call. So he contented himself 
with a letter which requested Mr. Courtenay to call 
upon him, when that gentleman next visited New 
York, with reference to a matter deeply concerning 
his daughter, “ now known as Mrs. Trescotte,” clos- 
ing with the suggestion that were that visit made 
immediately, all purposes would be best served. 

Mr. Courtenay, on receiving this letter, condemned 
all lawyers to perdition for their non-committal 
ways and legal phraseology. 

“ They are never certain of anything — these law- 
yers,” he exclaimed, much irritated, as he threw the 
letter across the breakfast table to his wife. “ The 
absurdity of that descriptive phrase, ‘ now know as 
Mrs. Trescotte’! Bah ! Their caution in statement 
amounts to insanity.” 

“ But what does he want ? ” asked Mrs. Courtenay, 
more concerned about the business than the law- 
yer's way of presenting it. 



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7 ° SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

“ Oh, something about property, I presume. 
Trescotte has made over that new house to Dorothy, 
through me. I’ll go to the city in a few days. I 
have other matters calling me there.” Thus lightly 
dismissing the letter, he addressed himself to his 
coffee. 

The same day that Mr. Courtenay received his 
letter Mr. Magrane was notified that his telegram 
was undelivered, “ the party having left town.” He 
therefore concluded that Dorothy had gone to her 
father, and that he was out of the affair, unless it 
got into the courts. 

When Dorothy “left town,” she had gone with 
Trescotte to Albany, and from thence to New York 
on the following day. While she could not see 
reason for such hasty departure from Saratoga, she 
had not opposed it. Once in New York, and in her 
own house, she was so busy organizing its internal 
economy that she permitted several days to pass 
before writing her mother of their sudden change 
of plans. Mr. Courtenay, little impressed by Mr. 
Magrane’s letter, had deferred his journey to New 
York from day to day, so that a week elapsed before 
he saw that gentleman. Since Dorothy made no 
mention of the momentous events which had sent 
them to a residence in New York in midsummer, 
the only effect of her letter on her mother was to 
cause that good lady to condemn the eccentricity of 
her daughter and son-in-law, and move her to write 
to her husband, who had departed before Dorothy’s 
letter had been received, to call upon the young 





































































































































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AN ECCENTRIC HONEYMOON. 71 

people and ascertain the meaning of their eccen- 
tricity. 

Mr. Courtenay, by calling upon Mr. Magrane 
before he heard from his wife, had learned of the 
cause, though not of the eccentricity. When he 
was admitted to the lawyer’s room the door was 
carefully closed behind him. 

“ I presume you have heard all from your daugh- 
ter,” said Mr. Magrane gravely and sympathetically. 

“ Learned all from my daughter,” repeated Mr. 
Courtenay, much impressed by the lawyer’s manner, 
halting in his attempt to seat himself. “ I have not 
seen my daughter, sir, if you mean Mrs. Trescotte.” 

“ What ? ” exclaimed Mr. Magrane, much aston- 
ished. “ Is she not under your care ? ” 

“ Do you mean, sir, her husband has abandoned 
her?” was Mr. Courtenay’s indignant inquiry. 

“No, no,” hastily protested the lawyer. “You 
are ignorant, then, of all that has occurred ? ” 

Dorothy’s father was now thoroughly alarmed. 

“ Sir,” he pleaded, “ do not tell me she has for- 
gotten herself.” 

“ No, no, no ! You misunderstand me ! ” cried the 
lawyer. “ There is no wrong doing on either side — 
that is, intentionally.” 

Reassured on the only two points he believed to 
be essential, Mr. Courtenay lost his temper and 

demanded angrily : “ D it, sir, what do you 

mean, then ? Tell me at once, without this exasper- 
ating delay.” 

“ It cannot be told in a sentence,” answered the 





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72 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


lawyer, highly displeased. “ Compose yourself. 
Take your seat/’ pointing to a chair. “You must 
listen to a tale \thich will give you much pain.” 

Trembling with apprehension Mr. Courtenay sat 
down. Without elaboration, Mr. Magrane in 
lawyerlike way told the story. The old gentle- 
man could hardly wait for its conclusion to break 
out into angry denunciation of Trescotte. 

“ That will not do,” put in Magrane firmly and 
severely. “ Mr. Trescotte is unhappy enough, with- 
out being unjustly blamed. He informed you of 
the other affair when he asked for your daughter.” 

“ But he lied to me, sir, he lied to me, for he said 
the other marriage was invalid,” cried Mr. Courtenay. 

“No; he did not,” returned Mr. Magrane very 
ooolly. “ He told you the exact truth as he knew 
it.” 

“ I shall have him indicted for bigamy,” shouted 
Mr. Courtenay. 

“No, you will not.” Mr. Magrane by his calm 
manner was striving to cool the other. “ A true 
bill can never be found against him.” 

“ I shall sue him for damages.” 

“ And drag your family name into a rude public 
scandal ? ” 

Mr. Magrane knew his man. This flash-light 
picture of his family involved in a public scandal, to 
be read of all the world, instantly quieted the old 
aristocrat. The lawyer did not disturb him as he 
was thinking. Slow of comprehension, and of 
choleric temper, the superficial aspect of the com- 

















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AN ECCENTRIC HONEYMOON. 


73 


plication had presented itself, to the excitement of 
his anger. But as the effect upon Dorothy’s life 
and reputation infiltrated his understanding, he was 
overwhelmed with sorrow. Turning a distressed 
face upon the lawyer, in a broken voice, he asked : 

“ What do you propose doing? ” 

“ I have done all I propose to do,” replied Mr, 
Magrane. “ All I was authorized to do was to 
inform you. This I was requested to do by Mr. 
Trescotte.” 

“ Where is Trescotte ? n 

“ I don’t know ? ” 

“ Where is my daughter? ” 

“ I don’t know. But as she left her husband, 
under my advice, on the day I informed her of the 
true state of affairs, and as she has not reached 
your house, I imagine she is waiting in some obscure 
place the result of my communication to you.” 

“ She must come home at once,” stoutly declared 
the father. “ I must find her and take her home. 
The poor stricken dear ! And she is innocent ! 
She is blameless, sir, blameless! ” He added this in 
a fierce tone, as if Mr. Magrane would combat it. . 

“ No honest mind would say the contrary,” calmly 
replied the lawyer. 

Rising from his chair, Mr. Courtenay leaned 
heavily on his cane, as he stood over the lawyer, 
and said : 

“ Poor Dorothy ! it is a bad mess. Her life is 
ruined at the outset.” 

A tear trickled down his face and was lost in his 


74 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


carefully brushed white whiskers, which he shame- 
facedly wiped away with his fine white handkerchief. 

“ I am much to blame for not examining more 
closely into that other affair,” he said ; “ but those 
documents were so convincing, and ” 

“ Do not blame yourself,” interrupted the lawyer. 
“ At that time investigation would only have con- 
firmed Mr. Trescotte’s statement. To have with- 
held your consent ” 

Turning hopelessly from the lawyer, Mr. Courte- 
nay with halting step left the room. 















1 . 1 ■- 


















































































































































-• V 























































































CHAPTER III. 


A BEWILDERED FATHER. 

Mr. Courtenay returned to his club too much 
disturbed to engage in other business. One 
thought was uppermost ; he must find Dorothy and 
take her home. But how ? She had disappeared 
from sight, leaving no means of communication 
behind her. A mighty fear possessed him, crowd it 
down as he might ; it was that Dorothy, in her dis- 
grace, had ended her life, and the thought of it 
made him very bitter toward Trescotte. 

On arriving at his club his wife’s letter was 
handed him. A hasty perusal assured him that 
Dorothy was safe and, moreover, in New York. A 
sentiment of grateful joy took the place of every 
other emotion. He determined to go to Dorothy 
without delay. It never occurred to him that Tres- 
cotte was with her. Had he read his wife’s letter 
with more care, he would have seen that Dorothy 
and Trescotte were occupying the house together. 
He had gathered the essential fact that his daugh- 
ter was safe and alive, and the fact, in the distracted 
state he was in, was so important as to obscure all 
other considerations. And had not Magrane told 
him that Dorothy had left Trescotte immediately? 


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76 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


This statement, as we know, was an error. It was 
not the purpose of the lawyer to mislead. When 
informed that Dorothy had left town on the night 
of the revelation, he leaped to the conclusion that 
his advice had been followed. That Dorothy 
should go to the house in New York did not seem 
strange to her father. The house was hers, held in 
her name, and he thought she naturally preferred 
the seclusion it afforded to facing society, as she 
must, were she to go to his home in Newport. 
Indeed, he thought she was prompted by that 
delicacy of discretion a daughter of Herbert Courte- 
nay naturally would show. 

When Dorothy came to him in the reception 
room into which he had been shown by a neat lad 
in livery, very satisfactory to his eye, critical in such 
things, he greeted her with an effusive tenderness, 
which was not his wont. He was not so unobserv- 
ant as to fail to note that Dorothy did not seem to 
be utterly broken down with grief, but it was fleeting, 
this notice, all else was lost in the joy of finding her. 

“ My dear, dear daughter ! ” he cried as he tenderly 
embraced her. 

Dorothy was much surprised at this greeting, so 
unlike her father. When his card had been handed 
her she had nerved herself for a storm of 
reproaches and angry protests. She knew what 
prejudices she was opposing, and that her father 
was the embodiment of them all. Believing her 
father to be fully informed of all the events, includ- 
ing her own determination not to be separated 
































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A BEWILDERED FATHER. 77 

from Trescotte, she was led into the error of believ- 
ing that therefore the presence of her father in 
that house, that is, the home of Trescotte and her- 
self, was in a measure approval of her course. 

“You have heard all the story, then?” she asked. 

“ I have just come from Mr. Magrane,” her 
father replied. “ My dear girl, my heart bleeds for 
you. Had I only made an investigation ! I blame 
myself so.” 

Dorothy checked him before he could say more. 

“No,” she protested. “Do not blame yourself. 
No one is to blame — no one at all can be blamed.” 

“ Not even Trescotte?” exclaimed the old gentle- 
man, surprised, for he had expected condemnation 
of him from her. 

“ No ; not my husband — he, least of all.” 

“ You are very generous, my dear! ” There was 
the suggestion of a sneer in his tone, but faint as it 
was Dorothy caught it. 

“ Not at all,” she replied with increased spirit. 
“ Harry has acted most honorably and uprightly. 
Why should he be blamed ? He was himself 
deceived, and he made no attempt to deceive us, 
or to conceal anything from us. Everybody who 
knew anything of the affair believed as he did — that 
the previous marriage was no marriage.” 

Mr. Courtenay was bewildered. Dorothy seemed 
to be more anxious to defend Trescotte from impu- 
tation than to bemoan her own fate. In fact, to 
all outward appearances, she was not sorrowing at 
all. She really seemed to be happy, cheerful, and 














































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78 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

contented. This certainly was confusing to a father 
who had come prepared to find a daughter over- 
whelmed with grief, and hurling reproaches at him 
for his failure to exercise proper protection of her. 

“ Where is Trescotte now?” he suddenly asked. 

“ He has gone a short distance. He will not be 
long.” 

Mr. Courtenay stared at his daughter. Then in 
his amazement he almost shouted his next question. 

“ He is not here — living in this house ? ” 

The scales dropped from Dorothy’s eyes. She 
knew now that her father had heard nothing as 
to their determination as to their future, but she 
answered smilingly with another question : 

“ Did you suppose I was living here alone ? ” 

Mr. Courtenay was speechless. Dorothy con- 
tinued to ask questions. 

“ Did not mother tell you we had opened the 
hou*e ? I wrote her we had. Did not Mr. Magrane 
tell you ? ” 

“ He told me you had left Trescotte,” interrupted 
her father, recovering somewhat from his confusion. 

“ He was mistaken,” calmly replied Dorothy, 
nerving herself for the storm. “ He advised that 
course, but did not give me sufficient reasons why I 
should leave my husband.” 

Her father was in a fog. It was plain to see he 
could not grasp the situation. His senses were 
obscured. One thing only was plain to him — the 
one thing he had seen from the beginning. He 
must take Dorothy home with him. 










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A BEWILDERED FATHER. 79 

He struggled to his feet, and said commandingly : 

“ Come ! ” 

“ Where ? ” asked Dorothy. 

“ With me. Home.” 

“ This is my home.” 

She was calm, but firm and strong. Poor Mr. 
Courtenay. He sank back into his chair helpless. 
His mind had broken from its moorings and was 
beginning to drift. He surely could not have 
understood his daughter. 

“ Do you mean to say,” he began, “ that you 
mean to live here, with this man — with this Tres- 
cotte — who is not your husband ? ” 

“ I mean to live here, of course,” replied Dorothy, 
her head very erect, “and with Mr. Trescotte, who 
is my husband ?” 

By this time the old gentleman’s mind was out 
in the current and at its mercy. He lay back in his 
chair looking upon his daughter impotently. 

“ Do you mean to say,” he asked feebly, “ that 
the story I have been told to-day is not true ? ” 

“I believe it to be true, in every particular.” 

A gleam of hope lighted up Mr. Courtenay’s 
horizon. 

“Trescotte has found a way to break these 
bonds?” he exclaimed. 

“ Not that I am aware of.” 

He was drifting again. 

“ Then why do you call him your husband ?” he 
asked. 

“ Because he is my husband.” 

























































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So SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

This answer only confused the old gentleman the 
more. He began to believe it a case beyond him, 
and was devoutly wishing that her m'other was with 
him to understand this daughter who had always 
been a puzzle to him, and never more than now. 
He sat quite still trying to comprehend it all. 

“ Father,” said Dorothy after a moment, having 
waited for her father to speak, and perceiving that 
now she must take the aggressive. “ Father, while 
you have been told of the discovery Mr. Adams 
made a few months ago, you have not been told all. 
And when I think of it, I don’t know who could 
have told you except my husband or myself. I will 
tell you now.” 

Mr. Courtenay straightened himself into an atti- 
tude of attention. This incomprehensible thing 
was to be made plain. Dorothy, with the color in 
her face heightened and her eyes very bright, leaned 
forward, and taking from the small table at her side 
a fan, played with it as she gathered her thoughts. 
Mr. Courtenay, closely observing her, thought that 
with her brown hair, deep brown eyes, and clear 
f^rown skin showing through the black lace of her 
dress, she was in appearance a worthy daughter of 
an especially favored race, whatever her conduct 
might be. 

“ That day,” she began, “ when Mr. Magrane 
told us of the distressing discovery, Harry and I 
long discussed my duty.” 

“ Your duty was to leave him at once ! ” interjected 
her father austerely. 














































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A BEWILDERED FATHER. 


8 1 


“ Yes, that is what was the first thought,” replied 
Dorothy. “ That is what Mr. Magrane said, and it 
was what Harry had supposed I would do.” 

“ And tried to persuade you from doing,” again 
interjected her father. 

“ You are much mistaken. He used neither per- 
suasion nor command. It was I who, having 
thought it all out while Mr. Magrane was talking, 
thought differently.” 

“ You ? ” Mr. Courtenay was aghast. 

“ Yes,” continued Dorothy bravely. “If there is 
anything wrong in my being here, I must be charged 
with the wrong. But I do not believe there is. I 
showed Harry that we were innocent of any wrong 
doing ; that we had obeyed all the laws of man and 
church ; that if we were in a false position, where 
dishonor could be charged, it was not of our mak- 
ing. At the very worst it was our misfortune.” 

“ Very true,” acquiesced Mr. Courtenay, striving 
hard to follow his daughter. 

“ I further showed him that the position was the 
results of defect in the social system ; that though 
we had scrupulously observed the laws and forms 
society and church prescribed for us, we were not 
protected from the failures of those forms and laws ; 
that having failed, and we the victims thereof, both 
society and church would punish me, the woman, 
for having been the victim of its own shortcomings, 
though I fled from him at once.” 

This was a little beyond the old gentleman’s com- 
prehension. He struggled with the statement for a 





82 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


moment, for Dorothy seemed to be waiting for 
some remark, and evolved finally : “ There is always 
sympathy for the unfortunate.” 

Dorothy resented the remark with something like 
impatience. She knew it to be so untrue. But she 
went on with her statement. 

“Now church and law being responsible for our 
position, and society inevitably punishing me for 
being in the position, all the influences would be 
for further punishment of us by separating us. So, 
after looking the matter over carefully, we refused 
to abandon our relations into which we had entered 
under sanction of law and church, to refuse to per- 
mit a system, or two systems, which had once pro- 
nounced us man and wife, to withdraw their sanc- 
tion because of their own, not our, defects. We 
determined for ourselves that Henry Trescotte was 
still my husband, and that I, Dorothy, was still 
the wife of Henry Trescotte. What God had put 
together, we would not let any man put asunder.” 

Mr. Courtenay did not understand, but he was 
horrified. 

“ This is blasphemous ! ”he stammered. 

“What is?” asked Dorothy ’ argumentatively. 
“ That we refuse to be made victims of defects in 
social and churchly laws? ” 

“ It is blasphemous to talk so ! ” cried Mr. Courte- 
nay, clinging to the word which seemed so apt. 

■“ I said churchly laws, father,” said Dorothy, 
“ not holy laws, nor the laws of God. Those laws 
were made by churchmen, therefore are human, and 



A BEWILDERED FATHER. 


83 


being human are imperfect. No, I am far from 
being blasphemous, for I defy you to find in all of 
God’s Word condemnation of our course.” 

This was getting into the realm of metaphysics, 
where the old gentleman had never ventured, and 
where now he refused to follow; he knew that 
Dorothy’s position was opposed to all his teachings, 
and so he sprang from his seat angrily. “ Enough 
of this ! ” he cried. “ Will you come with me ?” 

“ I will not leave my husband.” 

The issue was clearly made. The old man bowed 
his head and walked unsteadily to the door. Then, 
suddenly, as if a new thought had occurred to him, 
he turned quickly and bent upon Dorothy a swift 
and searching look. She had risen and was stand- 
ing in the center of the small room, looking after 
him sadly. 

“ I see — I see how it is,” he said as he went back 
to her, taking her hand. “Truly, you have had 
trouble enough to have unsettled a stronger reason. 
Good-by, child.” 

He kissed her, adding : 

“ You will see me again soon, and then I shall bring 
someone with me, who, I hope, can do you good.” 

He went out of the house hurriedly. 

Mr. Courtenay had not been long gone when 
Trescotte returned. He found Dorothy still in the 
reception room, not a little sad over the interview 
with her father. She told Trescotte of her father’s 
call, his demand that she should go with him, her 
refusal, and her father’s remark on leaving. 
















































































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SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM ? 


“ He meant that he would send mamma to me,” 
she concluded. “Well, I hope he will, and soon. 
The visit of mother is the only ordeal I dread, and I 
want it over, so that we can settle into our regular 
and happy life.” 

They embraced each other tenderly, forgetting 
that servants were in the way, and Dorothy went to 
prepare for her afternoon’s ride. About the time 
she stepped into that new Brewsters, drawn by that 
wonderful pair of hackneys which were the admira- 
tion of the neighborhood, her father was sending a 
dispatch to her mother, demanding her coming to 
New York witkout an hour’s delay. 












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CHAPTER IV. 

A DIPLOMATIC MOTHER. 

Mrs. COURTENAY complied with her husband’s 
imperative demand. The demand, however, did not 
put her in an amiable frame of mind. It did not 
seem proper that one of her rank and social im- 
portance should be subject to the calls of such a 
modern, “ hustling ” thing as the telegraph. A 
letter by mail would have b^en more decorous, even 
if there had been thereby a sacrifice of time. She 
knew of nothing in their affairs demanding such 
vulgar haste. Nor was it proper that she should 
travel alone. Since her marriage she had never been 
on cars or steamers unaccompanied by her husband. 
However, she overcame the latter objection by 
taking her maid with her, and her husband’s valet, 
who was conveniently married to that maid. Then, 
so unsatisfactory is the telegraph, she neither knew 
the meaning of her journey nor the duration of her 
stay. Consulting Hilda, that young woman, wise in 
her generation, said : “ Go prepared for anything.” 
So Mrs. Courtenay, within four hours after the time 
she had received her husband’s telegram, was en 
route for New York with five trunks, two servants, 
85 






























































86 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


and a severe countenance threatening an uncomfort- 
able meeting to Mr. Courtenay. 

The hour was early when she reached New York, 
but Mr. Courtenay was at the station to meet her. 
What fund of remark she had stored up for her 
husband’s profit and pleasure was forgotten in the 
first glance she gave him. His face told her that 
the business which had caused her hurried journey 
was serious, and her presence necessary. 

“ What is it ? ” she whispered after her hasty kiss 
of salutation, a fear of loss of property possessing 
her. 

“ I cannot tell you here,” he answered. “ Let 
Dawson look after the luggage. We’ll hurry to the 
hotel.” 

“Is it loss of money?” 

“ Oh, Lord, no ! ” replied her husband. “ But 
you must wait ; it is too delicate a matter to talk of 
in public places.” 

Mrs. Courtenay was compelled to exercise her 
patience, but when the privacy of their room was 
reached she dismissed her maid and demanded to 
be informed. 

She was astonished, distressed, but not over- 
whelmed, as the story was unfolded to her. Social 
position was not lost ; that, a hurried review assured 
her. She was somewhat alarmed as to the effect the 
revelation might have upon the Courtenay-Walde- 
mar engagement, and she saw the possible necessity 
of careful treatment to prevent a rupture of the 
most brilliant match of the season. 



















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A DIPLOMATIC MOTHER. 


87 


It must not be thought that she gave no heed to 
Dorothy’s position, and that she was not saddened 
over her daughter’s ‘plight. But Mrs. Courtenay 
was not a common woman. She was like the com- 
mander of an army in battle coming upon the field 
after his troops had been engaged and had sus- 
tained slight reverses — like Sheridan at Winchester, 
for instance. Does anyone suppose that, arriving on 
the field, that great soldier did not in one searching, 
sweeping glance assure himself of what had not been 
lost, before he addressed himself to repairing the 
damage inflicted by the enemy ; that he did not de- 
tect in that rapid comprehension the possibilities of 
weakness in the points in the line where all seemed 
strong ? Similarly did Mrs. Courtenay survey her 
field of battle. Before she began a serious discus- 
sion of Dorothy’s position, she rapidly summed up 
what was not lost and what must be guarded to pre- 
vent being lost by the reverse sustained. She even 
stopped to upbraid her husband for his stupidity in 
not making a rigid investigation into that other mar- 
riage affair, and his turpitude in withholding knowl- 
edge of it from her. But however willing Mr. 
Courtenay had been to heap reproaches on his own 
head, or to rest meekly under the reproaches of his 
daughter, as he had intended, should she have re- 
proached him, he was not content to hear a single 
word of rebuke from his wife, and made that so 
apparent that she desisted. 

“ Dorothy must immediately go home with us,” 
was her conclusion, after she had grasped and 

































88 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


digested the situation. “ It is the only thing she 
can do. If she remains with Trescotte her reputa- 
tion will be lost, and there will be no hope for her 
social rehabilitation.” 

“ Is there any now ? ” hopelessly asked the 
father. 

“ Perhaps not at once,” hesitatingly replied the 
lady. “ But when we have made the true story 
known with our color of it, and, with the great 
influence our two families, with all their connections, 
can exert, it will be accomplished in time. Un- 
less ” she added hastily, and then stopping with 

an anxious frown upon her face she lost herself in 
deep thought. 

“ What is the unless?” finally asked Mr. Courte- 
nay, tired of waiting for his wife to emerge. 

“ Nothing, nothing,” replied that lady nervously, 
as she roused herself. “ Order the breakfast, Her- 
bert. I’m famished. Afterward, I will go to 
Dorothy. While I am gone you can arrange for 
another apartment for her here. I shall bring her 
back with me.” 

“ I don’t think you will,” replied her husband, as 
he crossed the room to touch the electric bell. “ She 
seems determined to remain with Trescotte in spite 
of all.” 

Resuming his seat, he gave to his wife an inter- 
pretation of Dorothy’s argument of the previous 
day— an interpretation which his daughter assuredly 
would have repudiated. It was far from his inten- 
tion to misrepresent Dorothy’s views, but as it was 






























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A DIPLOMATIC MOTHER . 89 

his understanding of them, it gave his wife an 
erroneous impression, 

“ Why, she is positively blasphemous! ” exclaimed 
that lady, much horrified. 

“ That’s what I told her,” said Mr. Courtenay, 
much pleased to find his view sustained by his wife, 
and by the same word. 

“The troubles must have turned her head,” con- 
tinued the lady. 

“ There ! ” cried the old gentleman energetically. 
“ Now we are down to the practical consideration. 
There is the reason why I thought it necessary to 
send for you so hurriedly. I think she should be 
immediately visited by specialists.” « 

Mrs. Courtenay stared at her husband dumbly. 
Her own remark was a mere figure of speech. 

“You see,” continued the husband, “you can’t 
account for the position Dorothy has taken upon 
any other ground. She insists that she is wholly 
responsible for her determination not to be sep- 
arated from Trescotte. He, in the very beginning, 
concluded that she would leave him, and she insists 
it was she who persuaded him to the other view. 
Now, when you find a girl like Dorothy, brought up as 
she has been, carefully guarded against radical and 
destructive ideas, a Courtenay, into whose blood is 
blended that of the Van Allens, both families having 
centuries of conservatism behind them, deliberately 
entertaining and acting upon such views as Dorothy 
expresses, why there is only one conclusion to reach 
— her reason is dethroned — temporarily, however, 














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90 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


for there is insanity neither in the blood of the Van 
Allens, nor the Courtenays.” 

The summoned waiter appeared and received his 
order, the while Mrs. Courtenay went into another 
brown study. Possibly her husband had given the 
explanation of Dorothy’s strange course, and 
wouldn’t that be the best excuse for withdrawal for 
a while ? 

“ Well,” she said aloud, more in answer to her 
own thoughts than as addressing her husband. “ I’ll 
have a talk with her first. After that, perhaps it will 
be well to have Dr. Balkin see her.” 

Dr. Balkin was the family physician, much trusted 
and respected by Mrs. Courtenay — very skillful, very 
brusque, and given to plain speech, whether the 
same was agreeable or not. Dorothy was a great 
favorite with the old doctor, and had been from 
girlhood. 

“ Why wouldn’t it be better for Dorothy to come 
to us here ? ” asked Mrs. Courtenay. 

“ It would,” returned her husband, “but she 
won’t come if sent for. No, my dear, call upon her 
first and form your judgment. I think it will coin- 
cide with mine.” 

Breakfast over Mrs. Courtenay lost no time in 
going to Dorothy. The Trescotte mansion, for 
such it was, pleased her. She could not but admit 
that it would be desperately hard to give up such 
a house. She could not call to her memory any 
house of her acquaintance more perfect in its 
appointments, more richly, yet tastefully fu nished, 














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A DIPLOMATIC MOTHER. 


9i 


and about which there was an atmosphere of 
greater refinement or more elegant luxury. When, 
in the broad spacious hall, on her way to Dorothy’s 
boudoir, whither she had been summoned, she 
encountered Downs, the old Trescotte major-domo 
whom she had known since girlhood, she knew that 
the service was as near perfection as human skill 
could make it, and there was a feeling of pride she 
could not suppress as she returned the deferential 
yet self-respectful salutation of Downs. These old 
servants are the American patents of nobility. 

If Mrs. Courtenay anticipated an easy victory 
over her daughter she was doomed to disappoint- 
ment. Dorothy’s greeting of her mother was 
warmly affectionate. She cried a little as she laid 
her head upon her mother’s ample bosom. But 
it was from nervousness and ^affection, not from 
sorrow or a sense of shame. She had sat a long 
time with Trescotte the previous night, traversing 
the whole affair, and had retired stronger in her 
determination not to let the world and society ruin 
her life, and more confirmed in her conviction that 
the course chosen was the right one, and not in 
contravention of moral laws rightly considered. 

Mrs. Courtenay soon discovered that the woman 
“now known as Mrs. Trescotte,” as Mr. Magrane 
had put it, was a different person from the girl 
who had left her with a tender, clinging kiss, redo- 
lent of orange blossoms. There was a passing 
premonition that her task was not as easy as it 
appeared at the breakfast table. 







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9 2 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

Diplomacy is assumption and presumption. We 
assume that there is no other view of the subject 
we are about to discuss than the one we maintain, 
and presume that this is conceded by the other side. 
Mrs. Courtenay was a social and domestic diplomat. 
She made her first move in accordance with the 
laws of the game. She met with an immediate 
check. Dorothy conceded nothing. Indeed she 
was positive there were other views than those 
entertained by her mother, which, though not held 
by everybody, were, nevertheless, based on truth and 
good morals. The issue was joined in the begin- 
ning. Mrs. Courtenay, with all the force she could 
summon and the ingenuity she could command, 
made a presentment of the conventionalities. 
Dorothy met it with the arguments she employed 
with Mr. Magrane, Trescotte, and her father, per- 
haps with a little more skill, because they were now 
a little more familiar to her lips and vocabulary. 
In vain did Mrs. Courtenay plead that morality was 
opposed to Dorothy’s course. For each statement 
the daughter had an answer, and for each argument 
a counter one. It is not for me to say on which 
side lay the logic, but if sophistry was Dorothy’s 
weapon it was effective against logic in her mother’s 
hands. Mrs. Courtenay beaten, if not convinced, 
retired from the discussion of the moral aspect and 
addressed herself to the social, where she thought, 
as she had a right, she was invincible, since she was 
a leader in forming social laws and customs. When 
she presented to Dorothy the fact that she could 


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A DIPLOMA TIC MOTHER. 


93 


not remain in her present relations without falling 
under the condemnation of society, Mrs. Courtenay 
imagined that she had presented the all-powerful 
argument, for she could not imagine happiness, much 
less existence, under such a condition. And on this 
point she pressed her daughter hard, bringing all her 
artillery to bear with practiced skill and great knowl- 
edge. Then suddenly up rose Dorothy and con- 
founded her mother with a simple statement of 
fact, but, oh, how important and far extending in 
its consequences. 

“Mother,” she said, turning and turning her 
marriage ring, which she wore to the exclusion of 
all other rings, that it might be the more con- 
spicuous, “ this is the crisis of my life — the one 
great crisis of all my life, and I must look to myself 
selfishly. I know the swift condemning world will 
say that the course I am pursuing is not moral. 
But it will say so in ignorance. I refuse to sacrifice 
myself and my happiness to such ignorance. But 
whether I do or do not yield to its demand, the result 
is the same to me. It will ostracize me in either 
event. So it is for me to choose whether I will 
accept ostracism without happiness, or ostracism 
with happiness. I have chosen. That is all.” 

“ Birt I deny that ostracism will be the result of 
this misfortune,” exclaimed her mother, and then 
weakened her denial by ' adding, “ that is, an 
ostracism we cannot in time overcome.” 

Dorothy turned to her mother a hallowed face, 
sanctified by such exquisite tenderness and sublime 






































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94 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


love that her brown eyes were deepening into 
black — soft, lustrous black. 

“ Ah, mother, you do not understand. Could 
you present to your world the same girl Dorothy 
Courtenay was that day when she left her girl 
home for the last time, perhaps you might. Mar- 
riage is transformation. Dorothy Courtenay has 
passed away. She no longer exists.” 

She rose from her seat, and twining her arms 
about her mother’s neck in the way Mrs. Courtenay 
remembered so well of old, said in a sweet low voice : 

“And can Mrs. Herbert Courtenay, even, plead 
for the social position of a daughter, who by flying 
to her father’s home admits she is not a wife, yet 
who bears in her arms the evidence she should be. 
A life is quickening — a dear little, human life, and 
the crown of motherhood, is making ready for me.” 

Oh, divine motherhood? Oh, ‘the divine mother 
love — that silver cord, which draws all mother hearts 
together into the bonds of common sympathy. 
Forgotten the world and society, forgotten the 
pride of rank and the ambitions of caste, forgotten 
the splitting of moral hairs, in that precious moment 
when, impulse and affection taking sway, Dorothy 
found herself in her mother’s arms. 















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CHAPTER V. 


CHANGING THE TACTICS. 

If confounded, Mrs. Courtenay was not dismayed. 
The knowledge which Dorothy had imparted, while 
it had drawn forth an unusual exhibition of sym- 
pathy and affection, did not in the slightest degree 
lessen Mrs. Courtenays determination to effect a 
separation. Though appeals to Dorothy’s womanly 
pride, social ambition, and moral sense had failed, 
other means, indirect, if needs be, must be em- 
ployed. The task of bringing Dorothy to her 
senses, which had seemed so easy as she lingered 
over the breakfast table, in the effort was difficult. 
Sitting in the dainty boudoir of her daughter, she 
was conscious she had been repulsed in the first 
attack; and with the loss of some guns. Like the 
prudent general she was, she determined to with- 
draw from the field while she could do so safely, 
reform her lines, and with strengthened forces re- 
new the attack. 

A wrong would be done Mrs. Courtenay if she 
were not credited with an earnest desire to rescue 
her daughter from a life which she believed could 
not be other than doubtful and blameworthy — a 
desire based in sincere affection. That Dorothy 

95 






















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9 6 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

should leave Trescotte and endure a life of seclu- 
sion, simply because it was right for her to do so, 
was firmly fixed in her mind, and if she had not 
been successful in impressing that idea upon 
Dorothy, her daughter had been no less unsuccess- 
ful in enforcing her contrary opinions. She felt 
that the right was with her and that, if she could not 
make Dorothy see it, the bishop could. If, in her 
arguments, she had mixed the moral with the 
social code, and had made ethics and society’s 
opinions interchangeable terms, it was only because 
of her own peculiar education. But it must be 
admitted that she was greatly concerned as to the 
influence to be exerted upon her own social stand- 
ing by the knowledge that one of her daughters 
was, in fact, living as a wife outside the legal bonds 
of wedlock; the influence upon Hilda’s contem- 
plated marriage with Waldemar ; upon the daughter 
who was to come out two years hence ; and upon 
the son who had graduated at Harvard that sum- 
mer, and who would enter society the coming 
winter. Dorothy, notwithstanding the misfortune 
which had befallen her, in her father’s home, with- 
drawn from society, might be an object of sym- 
pathy, even of avoidance, but she would not 
be a reproach to the family, which she certainly 
would be were she to continue her relations with 
Trescotte. 

When Mrs. Courtenay touched upon this phase 
of the question she made more of an impression 
upon Dorothy than she was aware. Had she 




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CHANGING THE TACTICS. 


97 


known how much, doubtless she would have 
dilated at length upon it, but as it was, she said 
enough to send Dorothy into weighing the duty she 
owed Trescotte against that which she owed her 
family. And so no conclusion was reached on 
either side — that is, that was accepted by the other. 
Mrs. Courtenay refused to receive as conclusive 
Dorothy's expressed determination to remain with 
Trescotte, and Dorothy refused to accept as con- 
clusive, her mother’s assertion that it was her duty 
to return to her father’s house. 

All the time this discussion was going forward 
Trescotte sat in the library making futile efforts to 
read the book in his hands. His thoughts con- 
stantly reverted to the sweet little woman above 
him going through the ordeal she had so much 
dreaded, and who was battling for the right to re- 
main in companionship with him. He would gladly 
have taken this burden upon his own shoulders, but 
he knew that his presence would but increase her 
difficulties, and for the sake of her own future 
happiness with him, she must battle to the end, un- 
influenced by him, or by any appearance of coercion 
on his part. As sad and heart-breaking as separa- 
tion would be to him now, he yet felt that if there 
was a lingering doubt in Dorothy’s mind as to the 
course she was pursuing, and if she could therefore 
be swayed and influenced by the appeals now being 
made to her, it were better for both of them that 
she should yield now. If she did not, and passed 
through the ordeal yet firm and staunch in her 

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9 S SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

determination, then he himself would be firmer in 
his own purpose. He therefore awaited the issue 
most impatiently. 

Dorothy had asked her mother if she would see 
Trescotte, but Mrs. Courtenay declined, and with 
more bitterness than she had shown before in the 
interview, and took her leave promising Dorothy 
she would see her again in a short time. 

Dorothy, seeking her husband upon her mother’s 
departure, faithfully reported the interview and con- 
cluded with the opinion : 

“ Now that it is over and the ordeal I dreaded so 
much is passed, we may settle down and live our 
lives untroubled.” 

But Trescotte was far from satisfied that the end 
was reached. He thought he knew Mrs. Courtenay 
too well not to know that, desiring an end, she 
would not abandon the desire after only one at- 
tempt. And Trescotte was right. 

One thing had been settled to Mrs. Courtenay’s 
satisfaction : Dorothy’s reason was as firmly seated 
as it ever had been. She told her husband so, but 
he was loath to let go his opinion, and urged that 
Dr. Balkin should be asked to see his daughter. 

“Very well,” acquiesced Mrs. Courtenay, “it will 
do no harm and something may come from it. The 
doctor is very fond of Dorothy and she of him. 
He may exert an influence her father and mother 
have failed to do.” 

She had yielded to her husband’s urgency the 
more readily, because the visit of Dr. Balkin would 












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CHANGING THE TACTICS. 


99 


not interfere with the plan she had formed while 
talking with Dorothy. 

“ My dear,” she said, addressing her husband who 
had taken his hat and was now searching for his 
gloves, “ put your hat down and listen to me, I 
have something of importance to say to you.” 

The old gentleman replaced his hat and taking a 
chair sat down opposite his wife, remarking : 

“ To get Dorothy under treatment as soon as pos- 
sible is of the first importance.” 

“ Dorothy is as sane as you and I,” replied his 
wife shortly. “ And that will be Dr. Balkin’s opin- 
ion. What is of the first importance is to separate 
Dorothy and Trescotte. And this must be done 
quietly. She will not leave him of her own motion ; 
she will not now consent to leave him. We cannot 
seize her, abduct her, or kidnap her, nor can we 
appeal to the courts for her custody. All these 
methods would result in a public scandal, the thing 
of all things we must avoid. We have failed in 
pleadings, persuasions, and commands. Now, what 
are we to do?” 

“Upon my word I don't know,” answered the 
much-perplexed father. 

“ We must go to Buffalo,” said his wife decidedly. 

“Go to Buffalo?” asked the old gentleman, in 
sudden doubt as to his wife's sanity. 

“ Yes, to Buffalo,” repeated Mrs. Courtenay, much 
pleased with the impression she had made, and 
the importance of her communication. “ Buffalo 
is the place where that person Mr. Trescotte 

















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SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


married in Switzerland resides. She is the wife of 
Trescotte.” 

“'Yes, most unfortunately; for if she were not, 
Dorothy would be, beyond dispute. ” 

“ It is her duty to claim Trescotte as her husband, 
and insist upon a home with him.” Mrs. Courtenay 
narrowly watched the effect of her words upon her 
husband, but he was slow in comprehending her 
meaning. 

“ But, my dear, people, as we have evidence, do 
not always do their duty,” he answered. 

“ She is evidently a person of very ordinary origin, 
and doubtless could be made to see her duty in the 
proper light,” Mrs. Courtenay continued. 

“ Possibly, possibly,” rejoined the old gentleman, 
very much in the dark, but having profound confi- 
dence in his wife. 

“ Of that grade which is struggling always for 
recognition from the upper classes, she undoubtedly 
will be very glad to secure a husband of Mr. Tres- 
cotte’s rank in the social scale.” 

“ She did not seem so very anxious eight or 
nine years ago, when she gladly left Trescotte for 
Adams,” argued the husband, with a slight touch of 
humor. 

“ She was very young then, her head doubtless 
filled with romance — too young to fully realize the 
advantages of the connection she had made. Be- 
sides, she is abandoned by that man Adams, or 
did she abandon him ? It is immaterial ; they are 
apart.” 



















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CHANGING THE TACTICS. 


ioi 


“ Well, granting all this, what do we secure by 
it?” asked Mr. Courtenay, who had been vainly 
striving to grasp the meaning of his wife. 

“ I am surprised at your dullness, Herbert. If she 
makes that demand Trescotte will be compelled to 
heed it ; if she demands maintenance he must give 
it ; if she demands care and protection, he must give 
both. She will be asking no more than the law 
gives her the right to ask, and he must yield.” 

“ And still I cannot see what good that will do 
us.” The old gentleman was still groping in the 
dark. 

“ Why, Herbert,” cried his wife, “ I’m quite im- 
patient with you ! Do you suppose that Dorothy, 
high-spirited Dorothy, would remain for one mo- 
ment with a man who would thus acknowledge the 
existence of another wife ? At present she is in 
some incomprehensible, exalted condition of mind 
that persuades her that she is a sacrificing martyr to 
love and duty. A woman having supertor claims as 
a wife, visibly present, would bring her down from 
heaven to earth most rapidly, and send her home 
with speed.” 

“Great Heavens!” cried her husband, fairly 
startled by the boldness and originality of the plan. 
“You would not send her to Trescotte’s house to 
live there ? ” 

“To take possession as her right — to sit at the head 
of his table as is her right.” 

The old gentleman was aghast. 

“ Now,” continued Mrs. Courtenay, enthusiastic 






















102 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


in her plan, “go to Mr. Magrane at once. Get the 
address of these people, and we will leave for 
Buffalo to-night. ” 

“To-night?” Mr. Courtenay stared in astonish- 
ment at his wife ; her energy compelled his warmest 
admiration. 

“ Yes, to-night. We cannot afford to delay in so 
important a matter.” 

Partaking of his wife’s energy and enthusiasm, the 
old gentleman labored so zealously that the hour 
which usually found him dining leisurely saw himself 
and wife that night rolling rapidly toward that Queen 
City sitting at the gate of the Lakes. 


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CHAPTER VI. 


PLANS THAT FAIL. 

If, in the contemplation of the plan she had 
evolved, and which she had traveled to Buffalo to 
execute, Mrs. Courtenay relied on the belief that 
the lady, “ now known as Mrs. Adams,” to use Mr. 
Magrane’s phrase, would be open to the blandish- 
ments of the elegancies and luxuries of life, fine 
houses, and all the other things concomitant of 
wealth, she must have sustained a severe shock of 
surprise when she drew up in front of the Hallock 
residence. 

As she was driven up that noble thoroughfare — 
one of the finest in all the States — Delaware 
Avenue, she had noted with wonder, and with that 
resentment we cockneys of New York are prone 
to feel when we see evidences of wealth and 
fashion elsewhere than in our own city, the many 
fine residences with spacious and well-kept grounds 
about them. But when the horses were suddenly 
swung from the street to a broad graveled 
road which wound through extensive grounds, 
embracing the entire square, in the center of which 
stood a building of pretentious architecture and 
imposing dimensions, with wide verandas, porte 


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104 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

cochtre , spacious conservatories, the mere occupancy 
of which argued ample means, a large doubt as to 
the success of her enterprise took possession of her. 
She comforted herself, however, as she rang the 
bell, with the thought that wealth was not always, 
especially in these new cities, the assurance of social 
position and fine feeling. 

If, as Mrs. Courtenay supposed, the Hallock 
family did not possess social position, it certainly 
had knowledge of those who did, for Mrs. Her- 
bert Courtenay’s card was recognized as that of one 
of society’s brightest lights, and carried much won- 
derment as to the meaning of its presentation. 
Since the daughter of that house had, for a brief 
period, borne the name of the gentleman who was 
now the son-in-law of the lady presenting the card, 
perhaps after all it is not singular that it was 
quickly recognized. 

Mrs. Courtenay, sitting in the large reception 
room, admitting its superiority to her own, noting 
with critical eye the undoubted evidence of a keen 
and discriminating taste in its adornment, and argu- 
ing, thereupon, the possession of that quality by the 
inmates, thought that if she were not within and 
her husband without, in the carriage at the door, 
she would gladly retire from an enterprise which, 
the further she entered into it, seemed more and 
more doubtful. By and by there came to her a 
young woman not yet out of her twenties, appro- 
priately and becomingly gowned, of winning pres- 
ence, bn whose face there were traces of trouble — 











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PLANS THAT FAIL. 


io 5 

trouble that had chastened and refined, not hardened 
it. In a low and gentle tone she said in simple 
salutation : 

“ Mrs. Courtenay ? ” 

“ Mrs. Adams, I presume,” replied Mrs. Courte- 
nay, rising. 

As the younger lady begged the older one to 
remain seated she took another chair herself. Mrs. 
Courtenay, to her extreme annoyance, felt embar- 
rassed. This young woman was guilty of the bad 
taste of being diametrically the opposite of what 
Mrs. Courtenay had determined she was. Instead 
of being loud and aggressive, she was gentle and 
retiring ; instead of possessing a flaunting and flam- 
boyant handsomeness, her beauty was delicate and 
refined; instead of being a vulgar young person, 
she was ladylike, self-contained and self-possessed. 
Mrs. Courtenay’s premises were all wrong; but she 
was in for it, and she went at her business much as 
Taurus goes at a red gate. 

“ I have come to you,” she began, “ on a matter 
deeply concerning our two families.” 

This coupling of the known Courtenay family 
with the unascertained Hallock family was 
intended to be conciliatory, but the air and tone 
of condescension spoiled the effect. 

“ Yes ? ” inquiringly replied the younger lady, 
intuitively feeling that the five months as Mrs. 
Trescotte, which had spoiled her domestic peace, 
was the matter. 

“You may not be aware,” continued Mrs. Courte- 


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io6 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

nay very graciously, “ that last April my eldest 
daughter married Mr. Henry Trescotte?” 

“Yes,” Mrs. Adams replied readily, “ I knew of it 
at the time. Surely,” she suddenly asked, “ Mr. 
Trescotte did not fail to acquaint you at the time 
of the other marriage ? ” 

“ Mr. Trescotte,” said Mrs. Courtenay severely, 
impelled by a stern sense of justice, “informed my 
husband and my daughter before the engagement, 
and produced documents signed by you, Mr. 
Adams, your father, and mother, to the end that 
there was a previous marriage of yourself, but 
claiming it to be invalid.” 

The younger woman, with heightened color, arose, 
threw open a window, and handing a fan to the 
older one, returned to her seat, saying : “ It is only 
what I would expect of so honorable a gentleman 
as Mr. Trescotte.” 

Mrs. Courtenay inferred from this remark that 
Mr. Trescotte was not regarded with enmity by 
Mrs. Adams, but rather held in respect. She hesi- 
tated to think what bearing this might have upon 
her intended proposition. Arriving at no conclu- 
sion she went on : 

“ May I ask — I do not mean to give offense — 
when did you last see Mr. Adams?” 

Mrs. Adams, quickly suppressing the start the 
abrupt question caused, the color on her cheeks 
deepening, answered: 

“ A year ago, nearly ; Mr. Adams has been on 
the Pacific Coast on professional business.” Then 






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PLANS THAT FAIL. 


107 


with some hesitation, she added : “ I shall not con- 
ceal from you that we are living apart. The fact, 
however, is not public. The world thinks I am at 
my father’s house during my husband’s absence.” 

“ I had so understood,” remarked the elder lady 
dryly. 

Mrs. Adams looked up surprised, pain plainly 
visible. 

“ You had so understood ? ” she repeated. 

“ The knowledge is not general,” Mrs. Courtenay 
hastened to assure the young lady. “ It was com- 
municated to us by our lawyer, who is also the 
lawyer of Mr. Adams.” 

“ Lawyer ? ” cried Mrs. Adams, much agitated. 
There was so much that was pathetic in her appeal 
to her visitor, that the older lady felt a wave of 
sympathy sweep over her, though she had been 
so disappointed. 

“Mr. Adams does not intend to sue for divorce? 
Oh, the shame of it ! ” 

The wave of sympathy was transitory and the 
older lady relentlessly pursued her point. 

“There is no need of divorce proceedings.” 

“No need?” wonderingly asked Mrs. Adams. 
“ I do not comprehend you.” 

“I am sure, my dear Mrs. Adams, I do not want 
to shock you too much,” said Mrs. Courtenay, 
dreading to reveal the fact, yet anxious to get it 
over that she might come to the point which was 
her concern. “ I beg, my dear, you will prepare 
yourself for a revelation — which, while it may dis- 





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io8 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


tress you, is by no means as bad as it will at first 
appear. You know that every cloud has a ” 

“ Mrs. Courtenay,” cried the poor little distressed 
woman, “do have mercy and tell mq, what you 
mean ! ” 

Mrs. Courtenay, who thought she was approach- 
ing the subject with rare delicacy, was displeased 
that she should be hastened, and said abruptly : 

“ Mr. Adams discovered some eight or nine 
months ago that the marriage of yourself to him 
was not valid — that the magistrate who performed 
the ceremony had no authority.” 

Mrs. Courtenay regretted her abruptness when 
she saw the young woman fall back in her chair. 
Sfie thought that Mrs. Adams had fainted and she 
sprang up to call assistance, but the young woman 
by a plainly evident effort regained possession of 
herself and, rising from her seat, crossed the room 
and closed the doors. 

“ I have had so much trouble in my short life — I 
have been so unhappy,” she said plaintively, “ that 
a little more cannot make much difference.” 

She came back to her chair and leaned on its 
back. 

“ So I was not married to George, after all,” she 
mused, oblivious to the presence of the high-born 
dame of society, and the world, and the fashion. 
“ I have always feared that it was so. It did not 
seem like a marriage ceremony. I have lived with 
him eight years, the mother of three children — a 
mother and yet not a wife ! ” 


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PLANS THAT FAIL. 


109 

“ But you are a wife ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Courtenay 
eagerly. The iron was now hot and she would 
hammer it. 

The young woman, aroused by the eager exclama- 
tion, turned a bewildered face upon her visitor. 

“ The marriage with Mr. Adams not being valid, 
your subsequent one was, and you are in truth and 
in fact Mrs. Henry Trescotte! ” 

If Mrs. Courtenay was ambitious of dramatic 
effect she secured it. Mrs. Adams stared stupidly 
at her for a moment, reeled, nearly fell, and finally 
slipped down into her chair overcome. She waved 
away, however, the proffered assistance of the older 
lady, and bracing her back against her chair, her 
hands tightly clutching the arms of it, tried to grasp 
the tangle in which she was involved. Mrs. Courte- 
nay, fearful lest she should not grasp the essential 
fact that she was Mrs. Trescotte, repeated the state- 
ment in various forms. But Mrs. Adams did not 
heed her; she was trying to think her way out of the 
confusion of her life. Suddenly an idea, clear and 
distinct, presented itself. “ Then your daughter is 
not Mrs. Trescotte,” she said almost sharply, turn- 
ing upon Mrs. Courtenay. 

“ That fact is what has brought me to you.” 

Filled as she was with her own woes, yet she had 
room for sympathy for those of others. She rose, 
and going to the older woman, took the hand of 
Mrs. Courtenay in her own, and bending over her, 
whispered, “ I am so sorry for you, so sorry for her. 
I will do whatever I can to help her,” 



























































I T o 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HlM ? 


“She has your place,” returned the other; “she 
is occupying your rights.” 

At that moment there was a patter of running 
feet and the cry of “ Mamma.” The doors burst 
open and a handsome lad, dark-eyed and curly 
headed, ran in. He stopped abashed on seeing a 
stranger, and then shyly took the hand his mother 
held out to him. 

Mrs. Courtenay stared at him with wide open 
eyes. The boy was Trescotte at that age over 
again, as she had known him when his mother was 
her most intimate friend. 

“ Is that your firstborn,” she asked. 

“ My firstborn,” replied the mother, looking down 
sadly yet tenderly upon the lad who lifted Tres- 
cotte’s eyes to his mother. 

“Then,” said Mrs. Courtenay decidedly, “the 
more reason why you should claim your rights as 
Henry Trescotte’s wife and take possession of 
them.” 

Mrs. Adams was confounded. She could not 
understand the other’s words. She had supposed 
that the visit of Dorothy’s mother was to plead 
with her in her daughter’s interest, but she could 
not understand this urgency to put forward her 
claims as Trescotte’s wife. She said so to the elder 
lady. 

“ Look at that child,” was the reply. “He bears 
the prool of his paternity on his face.” 

The old, old trouble ; the same charge ; the same 
difficulty which had wrecked her married life. She 






















• X 



















PLANS THAT FAIL . 


ill 


wound her arms about the handsome lad as if she 
would protect him from the blows she had received, 
and was receiving again. 

“ Look at the child,” repeated Mrs. Courtenay, 
“ and tell me if your duty is not to give him the 
father who is his father.” 

“ I will not admit it,” cried the harrowed mother, 
“ and if it is true, there are two others which are 
not his.” 

This statement Mrs. Courtenay was not prepared 
for, and she had not an answer ready. But Mrs. 
Adams awoke to the singular attitude of her visitor. 
She knew that interest in her did not dictate it. 

“Your daughter is living now with Mr. Tres- 
cotte ? ” she suddenly asked. 

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Courtenay. 

“ Does she love Mr. Trescotte?” 

“ Very deeply.” 

“ Does Mr. Trescotte love her?” 

“ Unquestionably.” Mrs. Courtenay thought if 
jealousy could be excited her purpose would be 
served. 

“ They are happy together ? ” 

“ They profess to be.” 

“ Then why do you come to me ? ” 

“ Because the place she is occupying is yours.” 

“You are not frank. You want to separate them.” 

Mrs. Courtenay, confused by the sudden conclu- 
sion, admitted it. 

“ Since she is not the wife of Mr. Trescotte,” she 
said, “ her place is at home with me.” 



























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I 12 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


The purpose of her visitor was revealed. In a 
great rush of thought the young mother saw every- 
thing bearing on the subject as with a single glance. 
She was indignant. 

“ I see, I see ! ” she cried. “ In order to gain your 
own end you would use me. You want me to des- 
troy his happiness and increase his misery. I see it 
all now. She refuses to leave him, he refuses to let 
her go. Oh, yes, it is very plain now. And you 
would use me to force them apart. Well, then, 
I refuse. Whatever trouble Mr. Trescotte is in now, 
is the result of a chivalrous effort to protect me from 
the consequences of a wild caprice of a madcap girl. 
I respect Mr. Trescotte — honor him for his own high 
honor. I will do nothing whatever to distress him. 
I will never, never claim him for a husband. Look 
you ! I have lived eight years with another man. 
I love that man ! ” 

“ But you are not married to him ; you are, to Mr. 
Trescotte,” persisted Mrs. Courtenay, growingangry 
as she saw her carefully constructed plan dissolving 
into thin air. 

“Ah, there are laws superior to those of man, 
which man cannot alter or repeal — higher laws.” 

“Consider Mr. Trescotte’s position, his wealth 
and social station, and what he can do for your boy? 
You say you respect him ” 

“ Mrs. Courtenay,” broke in Mrs. Adams, her voice 
swelling with indignation. “ Look about you. 
Here are the evidences of wealth and luxury greater 
than Mr. Trescotte can possess. I am accustomed 



PLANS THA T FAIL. 


”3 

to them. Social position ? What is it? Recogni- 
tion by and companionship with a few people who 
think themselves superior to others no less refined or 
cultivated than themselves. But enough ; I refuse 
to discuss it. My position is hard, but I will not 
increase its bitterness with the consciousness that 
I have done aught to increase the distress of a 
gallant gentleman, who once sacrificed himself to 
save my honor.” 

Mrs. Courtenay listened to this with rising choler. 
She had felt from the beginning of her visit that she 
was in a false position, and now to hear her darling 
class flouted as if of no importance, and her propo- 
sition denounced as little less than dishonorable, 
was more than she could endure. 

“ You seem to forget,” she said with an unmis- 
takable sneer, “ that dishonor is in the name of 
Adams, and escape from it in the name of Tres- 
cotte ! ” 

“And you, madame,” replied the other with gentle 
dignity, “ forget that I am in my own house, hostess 
to you.” 

To receive a lesson in good breeding was not 
the purpose of Mrs. Courtenay’s visit to Buffalo. 
Very uncomfortable, she took her leave with the 
remark that she regretted that Mrs. Adams did 
not see her duty in the light others must. 

The interview was so trying to her nerves that 
Mr. Courtenay found the next half hour very trying 
to him. During the course of this half hour Mrs. 
Courtenay informed her husband that she found 









i H SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

Mrs. Adams to be a very ill-bred person with 
shadowy notions of honor and morality. 

Now, I submit that Mrs. Adams, who has always 
been rather a favorite of mine, was not — but there, 
of course if Mrs. Courtenay, the leader of the most 
exclusive sept of the most exclusive society of our 
city said it was so, why it does not become me to 
combat it. 



V 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE BISHOP TO THE RESCUE. 

Mrs. Courtenay, much crestfallen, returned to 
New York. There was abroad such laxity of morals 
and loose disregard of obligations and honor, espe- 
cially duty to society, that she was quite disgusted. 
What was the world coming to, if legally wedded 
wives declined to insist upon residence with their 
husbands, and laughed, as it were, at the superior 
advantages of society ? Really, she would have to 
believe the statements of the vulgar dailies about the 
spread of socialistic, communistic, and anarchical 
ideas, which she had always supposed to be the mere 
vaporings of sensation mongers. After the experi- 
ence of the past two days she was ready to believe 
anything. Here was her own daughter flying in 
the face of all settled principles, and actually assert- 
ing that her first duty was to secure her own happi- 
ness, regardless of all other things. And she was 
aided and abetted by Trescotte, whose breeding and 
traditions were no less immaculate. She might 
think that some dreadful heresy had crept into her 
own special order, and it alone, had she not found 
the same eccentricity in a lower class. 

But disgusted as she was, and as well disappointed 




















































































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n6 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

in the failure of the plan which had taken her 
across the State, yet was her determination firm to 
rescue Dorothy from the false position she was in, 
if not for Dorothy’s sake alone, then for that of the 
younger members of her family, whose futures were 
yet to be made. But how? Appeals to her 
daughter were useless ; Mrs. Adams refused to 
interfere. Would she have to adopt her husband’s 
theory, that Dorothy’s mind was unsettled ? It 
really began to look so. Could she only separate 
Dorothy from Trescotte on any pretext, and sur- 
round her with the proper moral atmosphere, she 
was quite certain she could make the separation 
permanent. 

But Dr. Balkin, for whom she sent as soon after 
her return from Buffalo as she could, disposed of 
that idea. 

“ Why, Mrs. Courtenay,” said that physician with 
his customary frankness, “ if Dorothy is insane, it is 
a pity we all could not be touched with the same 
complaint. No one could be clearer-minded. She 
has wonderfully developed. Her troubles have 
strengthened her mind, not weakened it. Her 
health is superb. No physician or specialist having 
the slightest regard for his oath or his reputation 
would dare to do other than testify to her sanity.” 

“ Do I understand you, doctor, to say that you 
justify Dorothy in the stand she has taken,” asked 
the lady, not a little vexed by the doctor’s decision 
of manner. 

“That is a horse of another color,” replied the 



THE BISHOP TO THE RESCUE. 117 

doctor, using one of those phrases that always 
jarred on Mrs. Courtenay, notwithstanding the 
respect she entertained for him. “ The sanity, not 
the morality, of Dorothy is under question.” 

Mrs. Courtenay would like to have retorted that 
one could not exist in Dorothy without the other, 
but refrained, because the doctor always insisted on 
combating what he called error on the spot. 

“ But on that head,” said he, looking at his watch 
to see if he had time to devote to the discussion, 
“ I am forced to admit that Dorothy presents argu- 
ments you cannot answer satisfactorily to yourself. 
Of course, you can fall back on the truism that one 
should always do right for right’s sake, irrespective 
of all other considerations. But, you see, Dorothy 
insists that she is doing right, She says that 
organized society in establishing the principle of 
monogamous marriages has builded so badly that, 
through its defects, the condition in which she and 
Trescotte find themselves is made possible, and she 
wants to know if, because of those defects, they are 
to be disgraced and punished ? Upon my word, the 
answer is difficult. You see organized society says: 
Monogamous marriages are right ; if you will accept 
the principle, we will guarantee to you protection 
in the enjoyment of your wife or husband, as the 
case may be ; the control of your children ; the 
possession of your property ; and its succession as 
you desire it. It is a contract. Well, these two 
young people of ours enter into this contract with 
organized society and what do they find ? Society 


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n8 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

isn’t able to carry out its part of the contract. 
Society has slipped a cog. What is the result? By 
Jove, Trescotte turns up with two women, both of 
whom bear the relation of wives to him ; Dorothy 
is wedded without a husband ; Adams is wedded 
without a wife ; children with one mother and 
different fathers ; everybody innocent except the 
scamp of a civil magistrate — society’s agent, who 
was removed by another of society’s agents, having 
superior power, during his term of office, and who 
exercised a function of power after that power 
has ceased to exist. Now asks Dorothy: Society’s 
machinery having failed, and brought about this con- 
dition of things, why should she, because of this 
failure to which she in no way contributed, be 
punished with condemnation, ostracism, and separa- 
tion ; why should that child, yet unborn, be deprived 
of the care and protection of its father, the natural 
and proper guardian ? Upon my word, Mrs. Courte- 
nay, a better head than mine must answer her, I 

> i yy 

can t. 

“ But,” argued Mrs. Courtenay, highly displeased, 
wondering that she had never noticed the vulgarity 
of the doctor before, “having discovered this defect 
with all its unhappy consequences, what right has 
Dorothy to live with a man who is another woman’s 
husband ? ” 

“ There you are,” cried the doctor, jumping from 
his seat, very much in earnest and pacing up and 
down the floor, making Mrs. Courtenay so. warm 
that she was compelled to ask him for the fan lying 




THE BISHOP TO THE RESCUE . 119 

on the table. “ There you are. That is where 
Dorothy fairly takes your breath away with her 
argument. She says practically, not in so many 
words, but to the same effect, that society, organized 
society, you know — the state, the law — having failed 
in its part of the contract in the marriage of Adams 
and that other woman, it cannot calmly disregard 
its failure, and insist upon the stability of the second 
because the first failed through the defects of its 
own machinery. Therefore, the marriage of herself, 
sanctioned by both church and law, must stand. In 
other words, society having made one failure must 
stand upon and end on that failure, and not go for- 
ward and make another failure in an attempt to 
repair the first.” 

“It is too finely drawn for me,” said Mrs. Courte- 
nay, fanning herself vigorously. 

“ It is the idea of intent she is getting at,” inter- 
preted the doctor, still very earnest. “ Adams and 
the Hallock girl intended to get married ; the 
state — organized society — intended to marry them. 
They thought they were married. Now, says 
Dorothy, the mere fact that the machinery of the 
state, provided by itself, broke down does not 
destroy the intent of these people. You say, per- 
haps, that Trescotte intended also to marry the 
Hallock girl, but it was an intent based upon the 
belief that she was an unwedded girl. The basis of 
the intent being false the intent does not exist. 
The girl intended to marry Trescotte, but she was 
falsely persuaded that she was not bound by the 


































































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120 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


first marriage, and away goes her intent. And all 
this is granted when Adams is permitted to take 
repossession of the girl. Now, says Dorothy, it is 
not good sense nor good morals to change condi- 
tions existing eight years, because eight years after 
their establishment a defect in society’s machinery 
is discovered.” 

“ But will the world follow this extraordinary and 
very finely spun reasoning?” sneered Mrs. Cour- 
tenay, out of all patience with the doctor that he 
should see anything in Dorothy’s fanciful logic. 

“ Possibly not,” promptly returned the doctor. 
“ The world is very ignorant and very obstinate.” 
Then, as if thinking aloud, he added : “ There are no 
conflicts of interest. Mrs. Adams does not want to 
go to Trescotte ; Trescotte does not want her. 
Trescotte does not want Dorothy to leave him ; 
Dorothy does not want to leave Trescotte. All 
there is of it is, that Dorothy’s people want to take 
her home.” 

“ And is not that what you would want to do if 
one of your daughters was in a similar position?” 
asked Mrs. Courtenay, bridling up quickly in her 
own defense. 

“Yes,” readily replied the doctor. “Just what I 
would want to do, for I am as much afraid of that 
great big bugaboo, society, and the world, as you are. 
But let us get back to business,” he added as he 
took his hat and gloves and picked up his cane. 
“Dismiss all idea of Dorothy’s insanity. You will 
only get into trouble if you pursue the idea further.” 


* 







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THE BISHOP TO THE RESCUE. 


I 2 I 


And the doctor went his way, leaving Mrs. Courte- 
nay with a feeling of utter helplessness. She was 
forced to confess that she had been defeated in 
every effort to take Dorothy from Trescotte by 
methods that were not public. She thought, and 
with satisfaction, fihat as yet knowledge of the affair 
was confined to a small circle — a few friends who 
would not talk. And it was clear that before the 
knowledge crept out she must forward Hilda’s wed- 
ding with all possible speed. It was to occur in 
October, but the date was not definitely fixed. 
That she must attend to as soon as Waldemar 
returned from Saratoga, by which time she hoped 
to bring about such complications as would prevent 
the possibility of a rupture. In the meantime she 
did not know but that it would be the better plan, 
since Dorothy would not leave Trescotte willingly, 
to devote her energies to keeping the truth a secret 
until after Hilda’s wedding at least. The thought 
flashed over her mind that such plan would be a com- 
promise with duty, and that involved in it would be 
the necessity of a seeming acquiescence in the relation 
Dorothy was maintaining. This troubled her. She 
could not discuss the question with her husband. 
If it were one relating to property, the organization 
of a stable, or the proper arrangement of a dinner, 
his advice would be of weight ; but in this matter 
of a daughter who was married and yet not married, 
a wife and yet not a wife, he would be beyond 
his depth, and would suggest nothing better than 
insanity. 








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122 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


A happy thought struck her. The bishop was 
in town. She would call upon him. Ordering a 
carriage she was driven to the episcopal residence. 
She found the prelate in, and to him unfolded her 
woes. He was distressed, as a shepherd naturally 
would be when he heard that one of the lambs of 
his flock was so involved. He proposed that he 
should go to Dorothy at once, and under the mantle 
of his spiritual authority instruct her as to the course 
she should pursue, which, of course, was in the direc- 
tion in which Mrs. Courtenay had been labpring. 

While the good lady was willing, indeed anxious, 
that he should do so, still she was doubtful as to the 
outcome. What she wanted at that time was to 
be advised as to her own duty. For the sake of the 
great ends to be gained, could she give a seeming 
acquiesence to Dorothy’s relations for a time? 

Perhaps it was not flattering to the great lady, 
but the bishop’s mind was more on Dorothy’s posi- 
tion than that of her mother’s. He required the 
story to be told him again, stopping its recital from 
time to time to inquire into points that were not 
plain. Finally, when he had the whole story in all 
its details, he paced up and down his study in deep 
thought, the while Mrs. Courtenay waited patiently. 

“ It is very distressing,” he said, emerging from 
his thought. “ I cannot see that Mr. Trescotte or 
Dorothy are in any way to blame, until, learning the 
truth, they determined to continue to live together. 
There is one view of this question which does not 
seem to have been considered by anyone of all those 




■ 











































THE BISHOP TO THE RESCUE. 


12 3 


you have consulted. I am somewhat astonished 
someone has not seen it — that it was left for me to 
suggest it — me, a churchman. There is such a thing 
as a marriage by civil contract. The Church holds 
marriage to be a holy sacrament, and abhors the 
civil marriage. But the law not only recognizes it, 
but provides for it by vesting authority to perform 
it in civil magistrates. It was this sort of a mar- 
riage that the man Adams and the woman Hallock 
thought- they had made. Now, if I am not mis- 
taken, the law in this State is still more liberal. The 
mere standing up publicly of the man and woman, 
each declaring before a witness that they propose 
to live together as man and wife, constitutes a valid 
marriage — a common law marriage, I believe they 
call it.” 

Mrs. Courtenay, inclining her head in token of 
her comprehension of the bishop’s remarks, thought 
it was a very common marriage indeed. 

“Now,” continued the bishop, “it is quite among 
the possibilities that the mere fact of Adams and 
this woman standing before a witness — this magis- 
trate — and declaring their intentions to live as man 
and wife, may be interpreted as being a common 
law marriage, and if it were, the position of Tres- 
cotte and Dorothy would be much simplified.” 

Mrs. Courtenay was delighted, and filled anew 
with admiration for the bishop, who, she had always 
declared, was the most delightful man of her 
acquaintance. 

“Of course,” continued the bishop, “a competent 



124 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


lawyer will advise you. I don’t know just what 
would be necessary to establish the fact. Perhaps 
a divorce suit upon the part of somebody. But 
here I must stop, for embarrassment begins. I 
cannot and will not advise you as to this, because my 
sacerdotal office forbids me. All I can do is to sug- 
gest the reference of the question to competent 
counsel. But I will go to Dorothy. She will not 
refuse to talk to me, who has baptized, confirmed, 
and married her.” 

Mrs. Courtenay left the bishop with a light heart. 
She was more than ever convinced of the “comforts 
of religion ” ; and without waiting to consult her 
husband was driven downtown, to the office of Mr. 
Magrane. 

The bishop did go, and without delay, to 
Dorothy. Moreover he met Trescotte. The call 
was exceedingly pleasant to all concerned, though 
the bishop did set forth their duty as he saw it, but 
as they did not, and as they frankly told him. But 
everybody was very polite. Dorothy was really 
glad to see the bishop and made him feel that she 
was. But pleased as he was, he left them with little 
belief in the efficacy of his own law, and much faith 
in that which he was certain Mrs. Courtenay had 
left him to invoke. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


LAW SUPPORTS THE CHURCH. 

When the bishop’s suggestion was put before 
Mr. Magrane, that gentleman thought possibly 
there was something in it. He wondered why it 
had not occurred to him. Yet he saw great diffi- 
culties in establishing the fact. A judicial deter- 
mination could only be reached through a suit at 
law. And who would bring it ? If Trescotte and 
Dorothy would sue each other for divorce perhaps 
the validity of the Adarns-Hallock marriage could 
be brought in and determined, but if they were 
willing to proceed to such extraordinary means to 
establish the validity of their own marriage, the 
result must be that a huge scandal would be spread 
out for the public delectation, involving the sacred 
Courtenay family. 

Mrs. Courtenay dismissed that idea summarily. 
Well, then, it was among the possibilities that Mrs. 
Adams might be persuaded to bring a suit against 
Mr. Adams for the support of her children, or 
abandonment, but the lawyer judged that to be 
very doubtful, in view of the lady’s admission that 
she still loved Adams and desired nothing so much 
as a restoration of relations between herself and 


125 


































126 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

Adams ; and (the lawyer was cautious of statement 
here) doubtless the lady had quite as much dislike 
for scandal as Mrs. Courtenay, and such a suit must 
inevitably bring out the incident of the five months 
with Trescotte. Of course Adams could bring a 
suit, but to what end? To establish the validity of 
a marriage, which, as it stood now, to him was inva- 
lid, and re-impose obligations which he had shuffled 
off? 

Looking at the matter from every side, and 
believing that there was, in fact, a common law 
marriage between Adams and Miss Hallock, Mr. 
Magrane was of the opinion that the best thing to 
do was to do nothing. 

It was true that in the beginning Mr. Magrane 
had advised Mrs. Trescotte to leave her husband, 
but that was before this phase of the situation had 
been presented. Upon consideration, he now 
believed that Mrs. Trescotte was legally married, 
and he would advise that she remain with her hus- 
band. Of course, this advice was based upon the 
assumption of the validity of the common law mar- 
riage, which the more he thought of it, the more 
he was inclined to believe was valid. If anyone 
wanted to dispute the verity of the assumption, 
then let that disputatious person undertake by legal 
process to prove its falsity and thereby play their 
game, but until someone did, Mr. and Mrs. Trescotte 
were justified in acting on the assumption. It now 
seemed to him that Mrs. T rescotte’s instincts had been 
true from the beginning, and that her position was 





















































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LAW SUPPORTS THE CHURCH. 


127 


tenable, not, of course, upon the fanciful grounds on 
which she had founded her decision, but upon the 
more solid facts of the case. It was useless to 
think that this affair could be kept from the public. 
Knowledge of it would creep out in some form, and 
perhaps create doubt, if not misapprehension, as to 
the real relations, but that could not be avoided any 
more than the occasion of all the trouble could be 
disposed of. It was inseparable from the complica- 
tion ; the young people must go on as they were 
going, answering nothing, defending nothing, justi- 
fying nothing — keeping their own counsel. 

This was by no means the outcome Mrs. Courte- 
nay had expected. Her active imagination, pro- 
jected into the next winter’s season, saw the marital 
relations of her daughter the subject of unpleasant 
speculation at half the dinner tables, and all the teas, 
of her world, and she could see with what delight 
the matron mothers, envious because of the brilliant 
outcome of the Trescotte engagement at the time 
of the marriage, and the undoubted triumph of the 
Waldemar alliance, would roll the sweet morsel 
over and over on every opportunity, and she winced 
under it. But what other course was there to pur- 
sue ? She would not escape this gossip if Dorothy 
were to separate from Trescotte. The advice of 
Mr. Magrane justified acquiescence in a continuance 
of the relation until after the Waldemar nuptials, 
and during the intervening time she hoped that 
secresy could be maintained ; indeed, she believed 
it could be. 






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128 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


So she left the lawyer, determined upon her policy, 
and that was to say nothing in her family, or to her 
friends, implying a doubt as to the regularity of the 
Trescotte marriage, and if anyone was presumptuous 
enough to speak of it within her hearing, she would 
summon to her aid all that arrogance which she 
knew so well how to use. Surely, she thought, as 
she was riding up town, the families of the Courte- 
nays and the Van Allens, with their powerful con- 
nections, were potent enough to force a respectful 
recognition of Mr. and Mrs. Trescotte. Mr. Banker 
had forced the acceptance of his daughter when her 
name had been compromised in its association with 
Tom Handysides, even though Mrs. Handysides 
had gone to the length of beginning a suit for 
divorce. Surely she could do as much. And the 
beginning of the effort was to be found in refusing 
to admit the possibility of a doubt of the integrity 
of the Trescotte relation. 

By the time this conclusion was reached so was 
the hotel at which she and her husband were stop- 
ping. For a lady, certainly not less than forty-six, 
accustomed to the most dignified leisure and the 
extreme of luxury, the three days since she had left 
home had been of unexampled industry. Excite- 
ment and her natural energy had kept her up. But 
though she was beginning to feel the effects of her 
labors, she had yet more business for the day. Her 
husband was anxiously awaiting her arrival. He 
was immediately thrown into confusion by the 
rapid change of front of his wife. When he last 



LAW SUPPORTS THE CHURCH. 129 

saw her she was apparently hopeless. Now she was 
in high glee, declaring everything was all right. 
This whirling about and unsettling things that had 
been settled was very irritating. It had been diffi- 
cult for him to understand how Dorothy had be- 
come unmarried ; it was no less difficult for him 
to comprehend how, having been unmarried, she 
should have become suddenly married again. But 
he accepted the fact, as he did most things from his 
wife, and to her satisfaction took fast hold of the 
essential, that there must be no admission of a 
doubt that Trescotte and Dorothy were truly man 
and wife. 

After a lunch hastily taken, Mrs. Courtenay, bid- 
ding her husband to make arrangements for their 
return to Newport that evening, prepared herself 
for two calls. 

One on the bishop to inform him of the result 
of her conference with Mr. Magrane, and to obtain, 
if possible, his approval of the policy she had de- 
termined upon, and thus remove all lingering 
doubts as to its morality. The bishop was highly 
pleased with the turn of affairs. He could see, he 
said, little, if any, difference between a common 
law marriage and one performed by a civil magis- 
trate. Neither, as all marriages should be, was a 
holy sacrament. Therefore, if so high an authority 
as Mr. Magrane was satisfied that a common law 
marriage had been contracted by Mr. Adams and 
the woman who now bore his name, then surely Mr. 
Trescotte and Dorothy were in precisely the same 





























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13 ° SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM ? 

position as they all supposed they were on the day 
he had married them — truly and lawfully wedded. 

Much delighted, and with all burdens lifted from 
her conscience, Mrs. Courtenay went to her second 
call — to Dorothy. This time she saw Trescotte, 
for all bitterness had passed away and she was pre- 
pared to take him into the sunshine of her favor as 
her son-in-law. We are all of us prone to believe 
earnestly what we sincerely desire to believe. It is 
therefore not to be wondered at that, having Mr. 
Magrane’s opinion and the bishop’s approval, Mrs. 
Courtenay was persuaded that there was not the 
least flaw in the marriage title of her daughter, 
and whatever trouble there was, was due to the 
very stupid discovery of Mr. Adams, and that Tres- 
cotte and Dorothy had been very badly treated. 
So improved was the condition of her mind that, 
as she waited for response to her bell, she noted 
with critical delight the equipage waiting to take 
Dorothy for her afternoon’s drive, perfect in its de- 
tail, from the superb horses to the motionless foot- 
man with folded arms standing at the door of the 
coach. 

When Dorothy, who had been anticipating 
another assault from her mother after the calls of 
the doctor and the bishop had justified her hus- 
band’s predictions, learned the purpose of her 
mother’s call, she was greatly delighted. Perhaps 
she cried a little over the satisfaction she found in 
the assurance that she was a wife in name as well as 
in fact. And there was no less satisfaction in the 




















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LAW SUPPORTS THE CHURCH. 13 1 

Assurance that there would be no rupture of family 
ties. She had foreseen such rupture, and while de- 
termined to endure it rather than part from Tres- 
cotte, yet she had grieved over it in secret. Tres- 
cotte suspected that this was the reason for the 
shade of melancholy he had seen flit over her face 
when her father’s or mother’s name was mentioned, 
and he was highly pleased with Mrs. Courtenay’s 
news, assurances, and change of temper. 

“ I was much distressed,” said Mrs. Courtenay 
very affably, “ when I first heard the story. The 
only thing I hold against Mr. Magrane is that be- 
fore making us all so uncomfortable he did not ex- 
amine the case in all its bearings. You see it is only 
because of my persistent efforts in your interest, my 
dear children, that the truth was forced to the sur- 
face. Surely you have had evidence of my affection 
for you.” 

And Trescotte, anxious to believe anything which 
would increase the happiness of his beloved Dorothy, 
assured his mother-in-law that he had never been in 
any doubt of that affection. 

“ Is it not singular,” asked Mrs. Courtenay, swell- 
ing with pride and really believing that she had 
rescued the pair from some calamity, “ is it not 
singular that it should have been the bishop who 
suggested this happy solution? You should both 
hold him in great esteem and affection.” 

“ We do,” responded Trescotte, very grateful, now 
that he saw the old happy light dancing in the dark 
eyes of Dorothy. “We’ll have him to dinner. His 




T32 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


family is away and his household must be dis- 
ordered.” 

A strict regard for veracity compels me to note 
that Mrs. Courtenay said nothing about her hurried 
trip to Buffalo, and her endeavor to persuade Mrs. 
Adams to set up claims to Trescotte as a husband. 
It really was of no importance in view of the turn of 
affairs ; it would have only complicated matters, 
and it is doubtful whether her motives would have 
been understood without a good deal of explana- 
tion. 

When it was time for her to return to her hotel, 
her own hired carriage was dismissed, and she drove 
back in that splendid equipage which had so excited 
her admiration, with Trescotte and Dorothy, and at 
the hotel there was a happy meeting with the father, 
in which the last vestige of bitterness was swept 
away. 

Mrs. Courtenay advised, and Mr. Courtenay 
urged, that the Trescottes should close their city 
house and visit Newport. The elder lady feared 
that the eccentricity of an open house in the summer 
months would excite remarks, something at this 
juncture to be avoided. Trescotte urged, in re- 
sponse, that the closing of it again after opening it 
for two weeks would excite quite as much remark, 
and being sustained by Dorothy, declined, saying 
that he was quite willing that the world should 
believe him “ spoons ” on his wife, and of inventing 
a new way of spending the honeymoon. 

Trescotte had a better and more profound reason 

























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LAW SUPPORTS THE CHURCH. 1 33 

than he had seen fit to express. He was by no means 
certain that their problem had been solved in this 
simple and direct manner. And he did not care to 
expose Dorothy to the dangers and humiliations 
should their story become known while they were 
in Newport. And he knew his Newport too well 
not to know what it would do if opportunity were 
given it. 

Mrs. Courtenay, wearied yet happy, returned with 
her husband to Newport to resume the weary grind 
of society’s treadmill, and Dorothy and Trescotte to 
the house with windows opening on Central Park, 
to live their lives in their own ways, far happier than 
they had yet been, for the sunshine is always brighter 
after the black storm clouds have rolled away. 








































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BOOK III.— OSTRACISM. 


CHAPTER I. 

A CRITICAL POINT. 

The wedding of Hilda and Waldemar took place 
in October, and the two young people crossed to 
Germany, carrying forward one of Mrs. Courtenay’s 
most cherished plans. 

Dorothy and Trescotte were not present. A 
jewel of large value represented them. At the time 
their absence was not noticed. It was not until it 
was all over that someone recollected and com- 
mented upon the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Trescotte 
were present at neither the ceremony at the church, 
nor at the reception at the house. Then busy 
tongues wagged. 

In the months intervening between the great dis- 
covery of the common law marriage, over which 
Mrs. Courtenay so plumed herself, and the marriage 
of Hilda, over which Mrs. Courtenay so triumphed, 
the lives of Dorothy and Trescotte flowed along on 
pleasant and happy lines. Life was perfect to 


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136 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


Dorothy. The birds sang in her heart a cheerful 
refrain that found an echo in her voice. Weather- 
beaten as I am by time, and the storms it brings, 
and realizing, as I must, how hollow are the joys, 
ambitions, and pomps of life, yet never could I look 
upon that happy face and those shining eyes, lifted 
with such sublime faith and confidence to Trescotte 
in those days, without a responsive thrill and a slip- 
ping back into the old superstition that there were 
such things as joy and happiness. Trescotte, too, 
in those days seemed no less happy, though he has 
since confessed to me that there was then the alloy 
of apprehension. Having little faith in the common 
law marriage, which he believed to be a mere sub- 
terfuge to quiet consciences anxious to be quieted, 
he feared that when society returned to the city 
Dorothy’s real ordeal would be reached. Supported 
by the powerful influences of the Courtenay and 
Van Allen, the Trescotte and McNish (his mother’s) 
families, together with the approval of the bishop, 
who had dined half a dozen times with them, he 
was willing to believe that their social position could 
be made secure. The trouble, in his estimation, 
was the concentration of those powerful interests. 
Divisions and jealousies existed, and there were 
branches of each family quite ready to rise in revolt 
against other branches of the same family. Did not 
the wife of the nephew of Herbert Courtenay dispute 
the right of Mrs. Courtenay to lead in society? 
And did she not insist, in view of the fact that her 
husband was the eldest son of the eldest son, et 






A CRITICAL POINT . 


137 


cetera, upon her right to engrave on her cards “ Mrs. 
Courtenay,” a privilege Mrs. Herbert Courtenay 
arrogated ? While all these various and sometimes 
hostile divisions were ready to combine to repel the 
invader, apparently they always were willing to take 
up arms against one of their order if the contest 
was to be waged within society’s circle. Trescotte 
feared that a contest in which Mrs. Courtenay 
should be the leader would only result in insult and 
humiliation for Dorothy. For himself he cared 
nothing at all ; it was Dorothy and Dorothy’s happi- 
ness that was upon his mind. 

Trescotte often discussed this question over the 
wine with Mr. Magrane. The lawyer had become 
a frequent guest at the Trescotte table. The cook 
was excellent and the wines superb. And he had 
grown to be very fond of the two young people. 
While Trescotte could not be satisfied that the 
world would accept the common law marriage as a 
solution of their troubles, Mr. Magrane could do no 
more than assert his positive opinion that it must 
stand in law, if they could only bring it under 
jtdicial review. They never got beyond these 
propositions, but the subject had an irresistible 
attraction for them, and they returned to it fre- 
quently when Dorothy had left the table. 

The real result of all this thinking and discussion 
upon the subject was, that Trescotte persuaded him- 
self that the course he and Dorothy should pursue 
was that of self-imposed isolation ; to refuse to 
accept invitations and to give none. If these peo- 


♦ 



















































































r 3 8 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

pie, learning all there was to be learned, condemned 
their position, at least the charge of forcing them- 
selves upon society in its ignorance of those rela- 
tions could not be maintained against them. By 
this course also Dorothy could be preserved from 
slights and humiliations. F ully persuaded as he was 
as to the wisdom of this course, yet he shrank from 
telling his doubts and fears to Dorothy in the full 
tide of her happiness. 

But the time for the Hilda-Waldemar wedding 
approached. During the weeks preceding the wed- 
ding, after the Courtenay family had returned from 
Newport, the Trescottes had frequently dined at 
Dorothy’s old home, and the various members of 
her family had been frequent visitors at her table. 
To all this Trescotte had submitted without protest, 
although he had been worried over sitting at the 
table with Waldemar. It was not because he was in 
any doubt as to the moral standard of Waldemar. 
He knew only too well that that easy-going young 
gentleman had dined at many tables the female grace 
of which was a purchasable quantity, and often had 
had the hardihood to leave his own drag at the 
races to converse over carriage doors with beauties 
more notorious for the publicity of their lives than 
the circumspection of them. But he also knew the 
peculiar code governing young men of the Walde- 
mar breed, and that they not only demanded from 
their wives the most spotless escutcheon, but the 
same from all of the female persuasion who belonged 
to them. The possible cloud upon the Trescotte 



















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A CRITICAL POINT . 


139 


marriage title had never been mentioned in the 
Courtenay family, and of it Hilda was as ignorant 
as Waldemar. 

But with the wedding came the necessity for 
action. The question was, should or should they 
not present themselves at the ceremony and the 
reception. Trescotte laid it before Dorothy, thereby 
greatly distressing her. If her father and mother 
and the bishop were satisfied as to the integrity of 
their relations, why should not the world be? Her 
husband told her all his doubts and apprehensions. 
It was like beginning all over again. Dorothy had 
rested so secure that revival of this question was 
almost as much of a shock as the revelation had 
been. However, she comprehended that all of Tres- 
cotte’s concern was for herself, and that sweetened 
the bitterness of it. 

The end of the conference was the conclusion 
that self-imposed isolation should be the policy, and 
to this conclusion Dorothy came uninfluenced by 
Trescotte, who contented himself with laying his 
apprehensions before her, asking her to reason it out 
for herself, promising to abide carefully by any 
decision she might come to. 

That is why they were represented by an expen- 
sive jewel at the wedding. 























































































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CHAPTER II. 


MRS. DEEKMAN’S DINNER. 

The wisdom of Trescotte was soon made mani- 
fest. 

Society had not long settled into its autumn 
routine before a whisper went its rounds that there 
was something wrong in the Trescotte marriage. 
No one knew just what it was, but whatever it was, 
was wrong. The facts, that the Trescotte’s had 
opened their city house in mid-summer instead of 
herding with their kind on mountain and seaside, 
and that they were conspicuous by their absence at 
the Waldemar nuptials, were put in evidence, and 
people were left to draw their own conclusions. 
And people, not certain what conclusions they 
should draw, nevertheless concluded things were 
very bad. It is a charming quality of human nature 
that we always take the most pessimistic view of 
our neighbor’s affairs. By and by the whisper 
took the more definite form of assertion that it had 
been discovered that Trescotte had a wife, other 
than Dorothy, hidden away these many years, who, 
learning of the Courtenay alliance, refused to be 
longer placated with money. Then this was fol- 
lowed up with the positive statement that all of 


140 




























MRS. DEEKMAN' S DINNER. 14 1 

this had been known to the Courtenays from the 
beginning, yet, as the wife was a low Swiss girl back 
in the mountains of her native country, arid the 
marriage was contracted before Trescotte was of 
age, it had been supposed nothing would be heard 
of it to discomfort anybody. But now the whole 
Swiss family, with peaked hats from which fluttered 
gay ribbons, with short velvet jackets with many 
buttons and cross bars of many metal laces, had 
suddenly appeared in the city prepared to push the 
rights of the Swiss Mrs. Trescotte to the extreme. 

And while society gossiped and wondered, Mr. 
and Mrs. Trescotte lived their own lives in their 
own way. Self-imposed isolation is what they 
called it. A figure of speech, however. They rode 
in the Park, and none on the Boulevard created 
more envy than they did when the famous hackneys 
swept along, arching their necks and throwing their 
knees up and down with the precision of piston rods. 
At th^ fall regattas the yachtsmen had admired 
the fine lines of The Decision, and noted with 
applause that, like a true sailor, Mrs. Trescotte took 
her “trick ” at the wheel. Their faces were to be 
seen at all the first nights, and the Trescotte box 
at the Music Hall was as eligibly situated as the 
heaviest subscriber to the symphony concerts ought 
to be. Moreover, there were current stories of 
dinners given to people famous in the arts and 
sciences, and music ales, which, if known in advance, 
would have led to more intrigue and diplomacy for 
admission than would have sufficed for three changes 


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I4 2 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

of the map of Europe. Surely self-imposed isola- 
tion under these circumstances was only a figure of 
speech. 

About the time the marital relations of the Tres- 
cottes began to be talked about openly, Mrs. Deek- 
man gave a dinner. This lady had three daughters 
still in stock, and had at one time entertained great 
hopes of both Trescotte and Waldemar. 

From the moment I learned that not one of the 
Courtenay or Trescotte connections were bidden, 
and that Mr. Magrane was, I had a wicked sus- 
picion that the dinner was a bit of social diplomacy 
to get at the truth of the Trescotte affair. My sus- 
picion was confirmed when, long before champagne, 
Mrs. Beestonmy, sworn crony of Mrs. Deekman, 
started the ball. A mention of the mystery only, 
was required to set the tongues in motion. All the 
old insinuations were repeated, and “ Airy ” Sheffer, 
beau to the matrons present when they were young, 
and still beau to their daughters, detailed minutely 
the Swiss family story. So much attention did he 
receive, something unusual in his experience, that 
he was tempted to flights of fancy involving an 
interview with the paternal Swiss, but was deterred 
by something in the eyes of Tracey Harte, who 
watched him steadily. 

“ How nice,” commented Mrs. Trevor-Alien when 
“Airy” Sheffer had completed his tale. “Why 
does Mr. Trescotte hesitate? I dote on bells. 
From that moment when my nurse took me to see 
a Swiss family of bell ringers, who made such 







MRS. DEEKMAN'S DINNER. 


143 


lovely music by striking bells with a little stick, I 
have had but one serious ambition in life, and that 
is to be on terms of intimacy with a bell ringer. If 
Mr. Trescotte will acknowledge this Swiss bell ring- 
ing wife, I’ll be her dearest friend.” 

Mr. Magrane, who was the lady’s vis-h-vis, and 
who was meeting her for the first time, addressed 
her across the table, his eyes twinkling with humor : 

“ You do not believe the Swiss family story ? ” 

“ Believe it ?” she cried. “ Oh, I must. My great 
desire to have a Swiss bell ringer in our set compels 
me, and then Mf. Sheffer tells it, and he has never 
been known to spread a story the truth of which he 
has not fully investigated — have you, Mr. Sheffer?” 

The appeal was made with such sweetness and 
confidence that “ Airy ” lost a little of that airiness 
which had made the pun on his name possible, and 
replied, quite red in the face : 

“ If I had had the honor of your closer attention, 
Mrs. Trevor-Alien, you would have heard me say 
that I did not vouch for the truth of the story, but 
that it was current talk.” 

“ How disappointing,” exclaimed the lady. “ I 
am afraid my ambition is not to be gratified. Be- 
sides, if Mr. Sheffer’s tale falls to the ground, what 
guarantee have we that the whole Trescotte gossip 
does not go down, too? There is a legal maxim 
to that end, is there not, Mr. Magrane ? ” 

Mr. Magrane laughingly assured the lady that her 
information was correct. 

“ Then the whole story about there being any- 












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144 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


thing wrong is all rot, isn’t it ? ” asked Tracey Harte, 
who was invited because Mrs. Trevor-Alien was. 
“ Well, I’m glad of it.” 

“Tracey,” remarked the irrepressible young 
woman, in a tone which could be heard only by the 
one she addressed, and Mr. Magrane, very attentive 
upon her, “ you positively must learn how to make 
love. The way you dispose of our latest and sweet- 
est morsel of scandal is too charming.” 

“ I never did believe in the Swiss family story,” 
boomed a voice like a fog horn at sea, down the 
table. It belonged to Mr. Starkhite, a solemn-faced 
bachelor sitting in the seat of honor on the right of 
Mrs. Deekman. 

“ Nor I, either,” put in Mrs. Deekman, who feared 
the conversation was taking a tack which would put 
the subject aside. “ But the story of a marriage in 
Switzerland has more substance, I think.” 

- “ Oh, my bell ringers yet. Do give it to us ! ” 
cried Mrs. Trevor-Alien. 

It was singular that, in view of the fact that Mrs. 
Trevor-Alien was so irritating, she should be invited 
everywhere. 

“ I d-on’t understand your adherence to bell ringers, 
Mrs. Trevor-Alien,” loftily replied Mrs. Deekman. 

“ Why, do not all the Swiss ring bells ? ” asked the 
young woman with great innocence. “If they don’t, 
they are nothing to me. Mr. Trescotte’s affairs lose 
interest if he is not to have a Swiss bell ringer for a 
wife.” 

Mr. Magrane, taking no part in the conversation, 





MRS. DEEKMAN'S DINNER. 145 

but watching his vis-ct-vis, thought she was adopt- 
ing ingenious means to end a conversation distaste- 
ful to her. 

“ One would suppose/’ said Mrs. Beestonmy very 
heavily from her side of the table, “ that the pecu- 
liar position of poor Mrs. Trescotte would excite not 
only your interest but your sympathy, Mrs. Trevor- 
Alien.” 

“ Ah,” replied that young lady with a very dan- 
gerous baby stare, “ to which do you refer? The 
Swiss — I won’t say bell ringer again, Mrs. Deekman 
— the Swiss Mrs. Trescotte or the New York Mrs. 
Trescotte ? ” 

“ I think there can be no question as to which I 
mean — the Mrs. Trescotte who has been brought 
up among us,” replied Mrs. Beestonmy, with the air 
of one who had sat heavily upon an offender. 

“ Oh, yes,” responded Mrs. Trevor-Alien, not at all 
abashed by the fact that all the conversation at the 
table was suspended to listen to the covert duel. 
“ So I should, and for poor Mrs. Courtenay, too. 
We all of us will be so distressed if it turns out that 
one of the matches she made with such skill, defeat- 
ing us all, and for which we all envied her so much, 
should turn out to be a fluke, won’t we, dear Mrs. 
Deekman ? ” 

Mrs. Deekman was slow in responding to this 
thrust. So also was Mrs. Beestonmy, and before 
either of them could convince themselves of the 
sarcasm of their intended replies, Tracey Harte 
broke in : 































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* 4 6 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

“ I don’t believe there is anything wrong at all. 
It’s just gossip started because Trescotte and his 
bride wanted to enjoy their honeymoon in a rational 
manner — downright, malicious gossip, I call it.” 

“ Positively, Tracey, you are becoming dangerous,” 
whispered Mrs. Trevor-Alien. “ The visible Mrs. 
Trescotte of doubtful relation would be sacred to 
you. But as a bride, concerning whose status there 
is no doubt, she will become the object of your latest 
adoration. You are very wicked ! ” 

“Mr. Harte wicked? Impossible!” simpered 
Miss Alliger, a young lady approaching the age un- 
certain, who sat upon Tracey’s other side. 

“ Positively wicked ! ” repeated Mrs. Trevor-Alien. 
“He would destroy the only pleasure left us poor 
matrons — the comforting consolation of well-regu- 
lated gossip.” 

“ I do not consider it gossip,” remarked Mrs. 
Beestonmy, lugging in her artillery. “ Here is a seri- 
ous question. Has Mr. Trescotte one wife or two ? ” 

“ Oh,” cried Mrs. Trevor-Alien, “ if you put it that 
way, all my sympathy will have to be for Mr. Tres- 
cotte.” 

Mrs. Beestonmy shot a stern look at the irrepres- 
sible young matron and continued : “ If he had a 

wife when he married poor Dorothy, then he im- 
posed on the poor creature.” 

“ I thought it was the settled belief of us married 
women that we were all imposed upon — our natural 
condition, as sparks fly upward,” again put in the 
young woman. 





MRS. DEEKMAN’S DINNER. 147 

Mrs. Beestonmy undertook to subdue Mrs. Trevor- 
Alien by ignoring her, and continued : 

“ But we are told that Dorothy knew of the pre- 
vious marriage before she was engaged. That being 
so, we have a duty to ourselves, our friends, and 
society to perform.” 

“ Duty \frith a big D, I suppose,” remarked the 
young woman with an approving nod. 

“ We should know the truth, and condemn such 
relations deliberately entered into ! ” 

“ But then the bishop sanctioned the marriage,” 
sweetly remarked the other. 

“ In ignorance of the facts,” said Mrs. Deekman 
loftily. 

“ Ah, yes,” answered Mrs. Trevor-Alien. “But 
since they opened house he has dined with the 
Trescottes six several and distinct times. Is that 
explicit and legal, Mr. Magrane?” 

The lawyer bowed, his eyes dancing. He opened 
his lips to speak, but Mrs. Deekman was replying: 

“ It may be true, yet you may rest assured that 
the bishop knows nothing of the story.” 

“ Pardon me,” broke in Mr. Magrane, speaking for 
the first time. “ The bishop knew all there was to 
know, without reservation, before he visited the 
Trescotte’s the first time.” 

The remark was like the dropping of a bomb- 
shell. Nearly all at the table knew that Mr. 
Magrane occupied the relation of counsel to Mr. 
Trescotte, and therefore spoke with authority. 
Silence followed his remark. It was Mrs. Trevor- 
































































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14 ** SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

Allen who broke it, and in so doing voiced the senti- 
ments of all. 

“ Oh,” she cried, “ there is something, then ! Do 
tell us?” 

Her question had an effect contrary to her expec- 
tation. Thoroughly convinced that there was noth- 
ing in the gossip, she thought they had arrived at a 
point when she could compel Mr. Magrane to give 
it its quietus. 

“ Mrs. Trevor-Alien,” replied the lawyer with a 
quizzical expression, “ a lady so intimately ac- 
quainted with legal maxims and legal phraseology, 
as you appear to be, must also know that a counsel 
is something like a father-confessor — secrets he must 
lock in his breast.’’ 

“ Oh, dear,” cried the lady, “the more disappoint- 
ing you are, the more interesting you become. 
How cruel ! You see us here, our appetites whetted 
for gossip, and you refuse us bread ! ” 

Before he could reply the deep voice of Mr. 
Starkhite boomed down the table. This time he 
was permitted to finish his sentence. 

“ I never did believe in the -Swiss family story, 
but I am certain the story of a previous marriage in 
Switzerland is true. It was an American girl he 
married.” 

This was another bombshell. Mrs. Trevor-Alien 
looked to Mr. Magrane to reply. In fact all did ; 
but it was not his intention to discuss his client’s 
affairs. 

The silence became oppressive, and it was again 




















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MRS. DEE KM AN’ S DINNER. 149 

Mrs. Trevor-Alien who broke it, and with a question 
to the lawyer. 

“ Are you a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Trescotte? ” 

“ I am more — I am their counsel.” 

There was strong emphasis on the word “ their.” 

Booming over the table came the deep voice of 
Mr. Starkhite again: 

“ I have known this for a number of years. The 
fact was told me by the lady’s father. I presume 
she is dead.” 

Again all looked to Mr. Magrane, but he was 
busy with the ice with which he had just been served. 

“ Or she may have been divorced ?” queried Mrs. 
Deekman. 

Still Mr. Magrane did not reply. Mrs. Trevor- 
Alien, addressing Tracey Harte, said, with the hope 
her words would reach Mr. Magrane : 

“ Here is a case where silence is more harmful 
than speech.” 

The lawyer heard them and shot a significant 
glance at the fair lady. “ I believe Mr. Starkhite’s 
information to be entirely correct,” he said impres- 
sively. “ To discuss a client’s affairs, even at a pri- 
vate dinner table, is a breach of faith upon the part of 
counsel, as any lawyer will say. Lest, however, my 
silence shall give color to the gossip that there is 
something reprehensible in the relations of Mr. and 
Mrs. Trescotte, I will say, I believe Mr. and Mrs. 
Trescotte to be lawfully and truly married. That 
also, is the opinion of the bishop, who proves his 
faith by dining with them.” 









15 ° SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

The peculiar emphasis Mr. Magrane gave to the 
words, “ I believe,” was unfortunate, since it, at 
least, confirmed the belief that there was something 
strange about the Trescotte relations, and that if he 
and the bishop believed them to be right, he ac- 
knowledged there was something people could take 
an opposite side upon. And the majority of those 
present were anxious to take the opposite side, if 
there was an opposite side to take. The discussion 
at the table, however, passed away, with one more 
attempt upon the part of Mrs. Beestonmy : 

“ Then if this is so,” she asked, “ why do these 
young people keep themselves aloof from society?” 

“I am counsel to them,” said Mr. Magrane with 
severe dignity, to the open delight of Mrs. Trevor- 
Alien, “ on matters of law. I do not counsel them 
as to matters of society.” 

Before Mr. Magrane took his leave, which he did 
shortly after joining the ladies, Mrs. Trevor-Alien 
said to him : 

“ I have been thinking what an uncomfortable 
time you have provided forthe bishop.” 

“I? How?” 

“ By telling us gossip-loving matrons that he 
knows all about the Trescotte affair.” 

“ I’m sorry for that. I’ll warn the bishop.” 

“ Do. No one who can snub us so artistically 
as the bishop when he is prepared. And, Mr. 
Magrane, tell him that if he ever was the friend of 
Dorothy Trescotte now is the time when he must 
prove it.” 





















































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MRS. DEEKMAN'S DINNER. 15 1 

“Of course I’ll obey your command, but I don’t 
understand.” 

“ Since we left the table we have decided that 
there is something improper, and so we are going 
to send Dorothy to Coventry.” 

“ I see.” 

The eyes of the lawyer expressed a great deal of 
admiration for the young woman, who, if incompre- 
hensible to many, was not to him. 

“ Oh, by the way, Mr. Magrane, can you give me 
the number of Mrs. Trescotte’s house ?” 

Mr. Magrane laughed outright as he gave it to 
her. 

“You propose to begin to send her to Coventry 
by calling upon her,” he said. 

“ I like to be first in whatever I undertake. Mr. 
Magrane, I receive on Tuesdays. I’ll be pleased to 
see you.” 

Mr. Magrane bowing his thanks, left her, wonder- 
ing where Mr. Trevor-Alien was, whether she was a 
widow, and what that wicked old Trevor-Alien, with 
his mint of money and thousands of acres, was to 
her, little dreaming that the vivacious and winsome 
woman was the wife of the sordid, wicked old man. 




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CHAPTER III. 


MRS. TREVOR-ALLEN’S INTRIGUE. 

The Deekman dinner gave impetus to the 
Trescotte scandal. It had served its purpose, and 
justified its expense. What had previously been 
suggested in ambiguous phrase was now expressed 
in plain terms. The Swiss family myth passed 
away under Mr. Magrane’s admission that Mr. 
Starkhite’s information was accurate, but involved 
in the admission was the certainty of something 
mysterious in the Trescotte affair, which must, 
therefore, be reprehensible. It was so asserted, at 
all events, in club parlors as well as those of private 
mansions. Mr. Magrane’s caution had not helped 
the Trescottes. His tone and manner, while assert- 
ing his belief in the legality of the marriage, had 
carried conviction of a doubt to those anxious to 
entertain a doubt. 

The bishop was much harrassed because of his 
possession of the secret, but, as Mrs. Trevor-Alien 
had said, he was an adept in the art of snubbing. 
He dismissed inquiries with the remark that since 
the Church, which was himself, and the law, which 
was Mr. Magrane, were satisfied with the existing 
relation, it was no concern of the world, which was 


















































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MRS. TREVOR-ALLEN S INTRIGUE. 153 

Mrs. Deekman and Mrs. Beestonmy and their 
followers. But the bishop’s reticence ordy added 
fuel to the flames. 

Echoes of the gossip reached Mrs. Courtenay, and 
she thanked her stars that Hilda was safely married. 
But she vowed vengeance and warfare upon those 
instrumental in spreading the gossip. When she 
heard of the Deekman dinner and the movement to 
ostracize Dorothy, she determined to show that 
she could bite. Mrs. Deekman and Mrs. Beestonmy 
learned that she could, and very hard, too, for at the 
annual meeting of the crack charity society, a seat 
in the directory of which was passport to the inner 
circles of society, these two ladies found the seats 
which they had only achieved the previous year 
filled by two friends of Mrs. Courtenay. They 
were under no misapprehension as to the cause of 
their reverse, and regarded it as a declaration of 
war, and vigorous war it would have been could Mrs. 
Courtenay have persuaded Trescotte to consent to 
a reappearance in society. 

Dorothy realized that Trescotte’s fears were not 
without foundation when she found that certain 
people who had formerly smiled sweetly upon her, 
who had stepped out of their way to be nice to her, 
now discovered something of interest in the opposite 
direction when they met her. Of course all this 
hurt her, but she dismissed it philosophically. But 
she was to undergo one ordeal she had not ex- 
pected. She attended an afternoon symphony 
concert at the Music Hall. Something had pre- 




154 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HLM ? 

vented Trescotte from accompanying her, and she 
was alone. As she passed through the lobbies, 
crowded with those who a month previously would 
have made her passage one of delay and difficulty 
by their salutations, she could not observe a single 
welcoming or friendly face. Upon the contrary, 
acquaintances looked over her head, and old friends 
turned their backs upon her. Stung to the quick 
as she was, her pride and lofty spirit served her. 
If there was heightened color in her face, there 
was regal haughtiness in her manner. She swept 
through the mass of skirts with a superb arrogance 
that would have delighted her mother, and wrung 
the heart strings of her husband, for he would have 
known what it had cost her to carry herself so 
bravely. This was the culmination of the slights 
and humiliations, and she knew now she had been 
sent to Coventry. Of course she had expected it; 
she had steeled herself for it ever since that day 
when the revelation was made, but it was so much 
harder to bear than she had thought it would be. It 
is all very well to sit in the quiet of your chamber and 
defy the world. It is very easy, then. But when 
you feel its contempt, what a different thing it is ! 
How large the world is then, and how small you 
are ! 

Mrs. Trevor-Alien observed Dorothy’s passage to 
her box. Her point of observance was too remote 
to have permitted her to have saluted Dorothy, if 
she had desired to do so. But she clapped her 
hands together lightly several times, causing an at- 
































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MRS. TRE V OR- ALLEN S INTRIGUE. 


155 


tendant squire to ask if she was indulging in a pre- 
paratory canter for applause in the box. 

“No,” replied the incomprehensibility, “ I am 
merely relieving my overcharged feelings. I am 
delighted with the delicious way I have been 
snubbed.” 

“ Y oif have been snubbed ? ” inquired the youthful 
admirer, looking around very fiercely as if he would 
resent the snubbing. 

“Yes; I, as one of my order,” replied the viva- 
cious young matron. “ But don’t endanger your 
mind by trying to understand me. On the contrary, 
find Tracey Harte for me. I will remain here.” 

“ Am I, then, to be dismissed ? ” dolefully asked 
the youth. 

“No. You shall attend me to my box, but 
Tracey must do something for me.” 

The young adorer of young married women was 
easily found. What Mrs. Trevor-Alien wanted him 
to do was evidently a secret, for she took him aside 
to communicate her commands. Moreover, it was 
something at which he rebelled, for he replied 
aloud : 

“ But, my dear Mrs. Trevor-Alien, my mother and 
sisters have gone that way, too.” 

“ Ah, charming ! ” said the lady with the most 
insolent drawl she could assume. “ And you have 
such ideas as they will permit you to have ! I make 
it a point to select as my friends, men. I shall 
regret to know that your visits upon me have 
ceased.” 


















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I5 6 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

No man can endure the contempt of the woman 
he admires. Tracey Harte wilted. 

“Your threatened punishment is too great!” he 
cried. “ I yield.” 

She gave him her hand, and with it the ravishing 
smile a woman, who has won a victory over that 
poor thing called man, always bestows as a healing 
balm, and whispered : 

“ You are learning to make love, Tracey.” 

Then she gave her arm to the youth who had 
been patiently waiting for her, as Tracey, a good deal 
troubled, turned from her. But at the moment she 
saw an arrival which filled her with joy and surprise. 
The arrival was the Countess Malcolm — her dearest 
friend, the playmate of her child days, the confidante 
of her girl hours, the partner of her pranks, and the 
participant in all her escapades, whose bridesmaid 
she had been when the Earl of Malcolm was wed. 
With an abandon which would have been deemed 
vulgar in a daughter of the people, she flung her 
arms about the American graft upon English stalk, 
to be received with the same effusiveness. Out of 
the whirl of kisses and “ When did you comes,” and 
“ How long have you been heres,” the fact appeared, 
that, contrary to the generally accepted notion, the 
Earl of Malcolm had an idea, which was music. 
Though their yacht had only arrived in port during 
the previous night, the earl, having learned that 
Paderewski was to play that afternoon, was 
determined to hear him. 

As they parted, Mrk Trevor-Alien was seized of a 

































































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MRS. TREVOR-ALLEN'S INTRIGUE. 157 

sudden thought and, turning back, rapidly communi- 
cated it to Lady Malcolm, who, to judge by her 
reception of it, was delighted. 

The intrigue Mrs. Trevor-Alien was engaged in 
was made apparent at the close of the first part of 
the programme. Rising from her seat in her box, 
only less conspicuous than the one occupied by 
Mrs. Trescotte, she made her way on the arm of 
Tracey Harte, who had come to her, across the 
house. People who were watching her — nearly 
all occupying the tier — opined she was going 
to the box of Lady Malcolm, who had been soon 
discovered after her entrance, and whose friend 
Mrs. Trevor-Alien was known to be. What was 
their surprise, then, and horror, too, when they saw 
her enter the Trescotte box ! 

Dorothy, apparently absorbed in her programme 
but really in her own bitter thoughts, was startled, 
and not well pleased, with the intrusion. But her 
visitor was not to be rebuffed. 

“ I saw you enter,” she said, “ in the lobby, you 
know, but I was too far away to salute you. So I 
have taken the first opportunity to come to you to 
complain of your treatment of me.” 

“My treatment of you?” inquired Dorothy, 
instantly appreciating the meaning of the ostenta- 
tious visit, and ready to cry with a right good will 
when she saw the sympathy and kindness shining in 
the blue eyes of her visitor. 

“ Yes,” replied the lively lady. “ Now, don’t try 
to think up excuses ; I will accept none. It was 







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I5 8 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

downright shabby. Three times have I called and 
three times have I been turned from your doors. 
Oh, I know,” she rattled on, to enable Dorothy to 
take possession of herself, “ I know you have thrown 
society over, but that is no reason why you should 
throw old friends over, who,” — there was a strange 
break in her voice and a strange change in the 
tone — “ who love you.” 

Dorothy was not yet in possession of herself, and 
not daring to trust herself to speak, she furtively 
sought the hand of Mrs. Trevor-Alien and pressed it 
warmly. The young matron rattled on : 

“ I am coming to call to-morrow, and if I am 
refused again I shall take the highly respectable 
Downs by the ear and command him to lead me to 
his mistress.” 

Dorothy laughed a little hysterically as she 
replied : 

“ I must respect Downs’ ears and instruct him to 
bring you to me when you call.” 

Mrs. Trevor-Alien had not been oblivious that her 
presence in that box had created a commotion in 
the other boxes. Tracey Harte had observed the 
commotion and, though uncomfortable, bore the 
ordeal well, in fact a little pleased with the idea that 
it was rather devilish than otherwise. The young 
woman who had made the situation improved her 
opportunity. Taking her lorgnette, with insolent 
elegance she swept the tier of boxes. From time to 
time, as she recognized acquaintances gazing in her 
direction, she lowered her glasses and bowed so 











MRS. TREVOR-ALLEN'S INTRIGUE. 159 

pronouncedly that to have refused to have 
returned the salutation would have been no less 
than an insult. Suddenly and with inimitable art, 
she cried : 

“ Why, there's Agatha — I beg her pardon, Lady 
Agatha Malcolm. Tracy, go at once to her box, 
presenting my name and the compliments of Mrs. 
Trescotte, and ask her here.” 

“ But, Lou,” protested Dorothy, dropping uncon- 
sciously into the old school day name, “ perhaps it 
may not be agreeable to Lady Malcolm to visit me.” 

“ Poh ! ” contemptuously answered the young 
matron, brushing aside the protest. “Tracey Harte, 
do as I bid you. Vanish ! ” 

As the young gentleman disappeared, Mrs. Tre- 
vor-Allen continued in suspicious haste, “ She knows 
all that any of us know, and when she comes, if you 
Lady Malcolm her, she’ll not forgive you. It is all 
very well for those who were not her intimate 
friends, but for one who was as intimate as you 
were, ‘ Aggie ’ or ‘ Ag ’ is what she wants to hear.” 

By this time Dorothy had realized that the 
episode was one of careful arrangement — that the 
young lady beside her had witnessed her treatment 
in the lobbies, and had determined to defeat an 
organized humiliation of herself. Though her 
sensitive soul shrank from so public an exhibition, 
Dorothy felt that gratitude to Mrs. Trevor-Alien 
demanded that she should assist her ally in her 
impulsive and generous effort, and she also thought 
it would be no more difficult to go through with 
























160 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

than to sit alone and unnoticed in the box, con- 
scious that the attempted humiliation had been 
successful. 

The commotion became a hubbub when society 
saw Lady Malcolm on the arm of Tracey Harte, 
with the earl, very distinguished looking, following 
leisurely behind, conveyed to the Trescotte box, 
and saw the effusive kiss the American countess 
bestowed upon the lips of her old school friend. 

Mrs. Trevor- Allen’s triumph was now complete. 
With that smile of sweet innocence, which Lady 
Malcolm said always indicated mischief, she turned 
to listen to the next part of the programme. 

When the concert was over the party descended 
to the pavement, Dorothy on the arm of the earl, 
and so admirably did Mrs. Trevor-Alien maneuver, 
that Dorothy drove Lord and Lady Malcolm to 
their hotel. Tracey Harte was rewarded with a 
seat in the carriage of the young matron. 

If Trescotte had been a woman, tears, for a com- 
plexity of reasons, would have stood in his eyes 
when he listened to Dorothy’s recital of her after- 
noon’s experience. As it was he was very tender 
toward Dorothy. He left a card for Mrs. Trevor- 
Alien in the evening. 

Mrs. Trevor-Alien called on Dorothy the next 
morning, and was conveyed by Downs to his mis- 
tress. It was on this occasion that the vivacious 
young lady invited herself, Lord and Lady Mal- 
colm, and Tracey Harte to dinner with the Tres- 
cotte’s the following week. She took supreme 



































































































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CHAPTER IV. 

MR. ADAMS ARRIVES, 

Ostracism was not prevented. Neither the 
efforts of Mrs. Trevor-Alien, the dinner to the 
Earl and Countess of Malcolm, the intimacy of 
those noble people with the Trescottes, nor the 
open countenance of the bishop, deterred society 
from ignoring the young people. 

If Dorothy grieved over this ostracism, she never 
murmured. She realized that there were other peo- 
ple than those who arrogated all the superiority, 
who brought as much refinement and culture and 
far more intelligence and accomplishment to their 
intercourse with people, and who were wholly indif- 
ferent to the opinions of that society which was 
bent on ignoring her. A few of her old friends, 
chief among whom was Mrs. Trevor-Alien, defied 
society and laughed at it. 

Mrs. Courtenay never was so haughty and arro- 
gant as she was this winter, and never gave such 
elegant entertainments, nor such exclusive ones. 

To all outward appearances the lives of the Tres- 
cottes were happy and pleasant. None of the 
rational pleasures which education and wealth 

162 





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MR. ADAMS ARRIVES. 


163 


could bring did they deny themselves, and they 
ignored society as calmly as society ignored them. 
December found them looking forward to an event 
of importance. 

Early in the month Mr. Adams, whose coming 
had been long expected by Mr. Magrane, arrived. 
Absent for many months upon the Pacific Coast, he 
was wholly unacquainted with the events detailed 
in the previous chapters. That he had once con- 
sulted Mr. Magrane as to his own marital position, 
was warrant to the lawyer to open the subject 
again. 

“ I seem to be the pivot on which all turns,” 
Adams said after the lawyer had finished a recital of 
the events flowing from his discovery. “ I don’t 
know what to do. I thought I had decided upon a 
policy. But what you tell me sends me all adrift 
again. I hold nothing against Mr. Trescotte. He 
acted very handsomely in that Swiss affair — a little 
foolishly perhaps ” 

“ He admits that,” broke in Mr. Magrane, “ and 
as well, very youthfully.” 

“ Oh,” returned Adams, “ his intention was all 
right. He wanted to save Elsie from the conse- 
quences of her own wild act. The fault was with 
the Hallocks — father and son — they are birds of 
prey.” 

“ Do you mean they laid a trap for him ? ” asked 
the lawyer, reverting to an early suspicion. 

“ No ; not a trap exactly. But they quickly com- 
prehended a situation in which they saw oppor- 







1 64 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

tunity for an advantageous alliance,” said Adams. 
“ You see, I’ve often talked with Elsie about this 
matter. You may blame Elsie for not insisting that 
she was already married. But they had persuaded 
her that she was not, that no real marriage had 
taken place, and she was so young and innocent, 
indeed, so ignorant, that she was wax in their hands. 
The truth is, Mr. Magrane, you can’t make a woman 
believe that a marriage is a marriage unless it is 
solemnized by a clergyman. They don’t know and 
don’t care about the civil contract side of it. It is 
either a sacrament, or it is nothing. If you can 
persuade a woman to join you under the civil con- 
tract idea, you can go further and persuade her to 
join you without marriage of any kind. That’s what 
I have come to believe. I thought I had persuaded 
Elsie that a marriage by a magistrate was as good 
as any kind of a marriage, but deep down in her 
heart she didn’t believe it. She showed that, by 
teasing me for a marriage by a clergyman, the first 
four or five years. That was one of the troubles 
between us — the beginning of them, in fact. You 
see, Mr. Magrane, I couldn’t consent to that. If I 
had, I would have admitted a doubt as to the regu- 
larity of our previous civil marriage. Then logically 
I would have had to admit the priority of that Swiss 
marriage with Trescotte. But I couldn’t make 
Elsie see it. To be married over again by a clergy- 
man was the remedy for all ills.” 

“ Yes,” replied the lawyer, much interested in the 
new tangle Adams was developing. “You would 























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MR. ADAMS ARRIVES. 165 

have admitted the invalidity of the civil, by con- 
senting to the performance of a churchly, marriage. 
Yet, if you had yielded to quiet the qualms of con- 
science of Mrs. Adams, I do not think you would 
have been troubled.” 

“Well, I thought I would get into trouble by it. 
Or, if I didn’t, Elsie would.” 

Before this, the lawyer had noticed a tenderness 
when Adams spoke of Elsie. 

“ Trescotte,” continued Adams, moving his chair 
closer to the lawyer’s desk so that he could lean his 
arm upon it, “ acted very handsomely toward me 
when in Berlin — the time I carried off Elsie, you 
know. Perhaps it would have been better for us all 
if I hadn’t, but that doesn’t alter the fact that 
Trescotte was very manly and straightforward. I 
thought, then, that his action was due to his belief 
that he had been badly treated by the Hallocks. 
But when I came to talk with Elsie, and learned all 
there was to be learned, I felt that it was because he 
saw Elsie was really fond of me, and I of her. The 
same sort of chivalry, you know, that made him 
marry Elsie. On her part, Elsie has never accounted 
satisfactorily to herself why she did not tell Tres- 
cotte of that marriage in Buffalo, before I turned 
up. She tried to, that day they were married in 
Switzerland, but then she was silenced by her father. 
You would suppose that she would have told him 
after she got from under her father’s influence. But 
I suppose then she could not summon the courage, 
and so let things drift. Women are not like men. 














































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1 66 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

They say women can’t keep a secret. What rot ! 
Give them a secret of their own and they’ll preserve 
it under the rack. Poor Elsie ! ” 

Again that note of tenderness and defense. 

“You say,’’ asked Adams, “that the woman Tres- 
cotte married this year is a fine woman? ’’ 

“ One in ten thousand,” said the lawyer. “A brave, 
loyal, true-hearted woman.” 

“ I’m sorry for her,” commented Adams. 

“ I presume,” said the lawyer, “Trescotte could 
straighten out all this confusion by suing Mrs. 
Adams for divorce, but that would involve every- 
body — you, Mrs. Adams, the Trescottes, the Hal- 
locks — in a scandal.” 

“ D the Hallocks,” cried Adams energetically, 

“ but I wouldn’t like Elsie to be tortured by it. 
You see, Mr. Magrane, the trouble is, that to the 
world Elsie would come out of such a suit the worst 
of all, and yet no more to blame than anybody else 
who is mixed up in the confounded muddle.” 

He rested his head on his hand as he thought. 

“ She’d be all right,” he went on, as if answering 
his own thoughts, “ if it wasn’t for her family. They 
keep her stirred up all the time.” 

“ Do you mean to say,” asked the lawyer, pur- 
pose sounding in his voice, “ that it was her family 
which made the trouble between yourself and 
wife ?” 

“ You keep saying my wife,” laughed Adams, “ but 
I suppose she must be distinguished someway. No, 
I can’t say that and be truthful. They contributed 

































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MR. ADAMS ARRIVES. 


167 


largely to the trouble, though. I think if it hadn’t 
been for them we might have settled our differences 
in our own way. The first trouble came from Elsie’s 
pestering me to be married again. Perhaps I was 
foolish, but you see I resented those five months 
she spent with Trescotte. Her persistent pestering 
never let it get out of my head.” 

“ But you condoned those five months when you 
took her from Trescotte,” urged the lawyer. 

“ That’s all right. I know I did. And having 
done so, I should stand by it. That’s all right. I 
know I should. I suppose if I wasn’t prepared to 
do so, I should have left her where she was. But 
you know when a man wants a certain woman, he 
wants her, and he’ll sacrifice everything, go through 
everything, to get her ; forget everything but the 
thought of having her. It’s a kind of insanity, I 
suppose. At all events, that’s how it was with me, 
and the opposition of the Hallocks made me all the 
more determined to get her. But I kept this feel- 
ing of resentment against those five months with 
Trescotte from Elsie until the first baby came — the 
boy. The fact was — well, hang it ! it was Trescotte’s 
boy, and that was all there was about it. There was 
the living, ever-present evidence of the five months. 
I confess I hated the youngster, and I presume the 
more I hated it the more Elsie’s mother heart 
pitied and loved the helpless thing.” 

A strange expression stole over the lawyer’s face, 
and he partially turned to his desk and gathered the 
scattered papers together. Adams stopped, but as 



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1 68 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

Mr. Magrane reassumed his listening attitude he 
went on : 

“ I imagine I was rather a brute. But there it 
was, and I wasn’t perfect — only human, you know. 
I suppose she wanted sympathy, and went to her 
mother for it ; the mother went with the story to 
her husband ; Hallock came to me ; I resented his 
interference and had a row with him. Well, the 
result was we went apart.” 

The two remained silent much longer than either 
supposed. There was an anxious frown and an ex- 
pression of sadness on Adams’ face. Finally the 
lawyer said : 

“ Your wife expresses strong affection for you — 
has done so within a short time to my knowledge.” 

“You keep on saying my wife. Yet, she isn’t, 
you know,” said Adams half inquiringly. 

“ I think she is,” replied Mr. Magrane signifi- 
cantly. 

Mr. Adams was aroused into mental activity. 

“ You mean something,” he said sharply, “ some- 
thing different from what you said when I consulted 
you before.” 

“ Yes, I do,” replied the lawyer. “ I told you 
then I was expressing an opinion without much con- 
sideration. Since then a new phase of the question 
has been presented to me, and I have concluded 
that you are still truly married to Mrs. Adams.” 

The dominating expression upon the face of Mr. 
Adams was that of surprise, but there was also 
another blended with it, but whether of satisfaction 














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MR. ADAMS ARRIVES. 


169 


or dissatisfaction it was difficult for Mr. Magrane to 
tell. Perplexity, however, made its appearance as 
the lawyer developed the idea of a common law 
marriage of himself. When Mr. Magrane had 
finished he waited for a remark, but as none was 
forthcoming, he said ; 

“ The establishment of the fact of a common law 
marriage between yourself and Mrs. Adams would 
simplify matters for Mr. and Mrs. Trescotte.” 

“ Which you are anxious to do ? ” said Adams 
somewhat jealously. 

“ Yes,” simply replied the lawyer ; “ but not at 
your expense, or of that of right or justice.” 

“I suppose,” said Adams, “Trescotte can bring 
some sort of a suit to get the matter determined.” 

“ I don’t think he will,” replied the lawyer. “At 
all events, not with my advice.” 

“ Suppose I won’t ” but Adams stopped short 

as another thought crossed his mind. “ Elsie may 
think of bringing suit against me ? ” 

“No, I don’t believe it. Mrs. Adams’ sole hope 
is a restoration of relationship with you. Her fear 
is that you will bring suit. She loves you.” 

“ Well, I won’t, that’s settled. I won’t involve 
her in any scandal. She’s had trouble enough.” 

He was silent a moment and then said : 

“ I like that man Trescotte, always did. Of 
course it is absurd after what I have said, but it is 
because of the plucky way he tried to save Elsie 
from the consequences of her wild freak. You say 
he loves the woman he married ? ” 


















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17 ° SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

“ I never saw deeper devotion. ” 

Adams leaned back in his chair, balancing his 
cane on his forefinger, a trick he was very expert at, 
and which was always indicative of deep thinking. 

“ Suppose,” he asked, “ I refuse to bring suit and 
that Elsie does, too, what is the result ? ” 

“ Matters must stand as they are, I suppose. So 
long as you are separated from Mrs. Adams, main- 
taining the idea that the civil marriage was invalid, 
there must always be a doubt as to the regularity of 
the Trescotte marriage.” 

“ Hum. But the separation took place before I 
believed our marriage to be invalid, and Elsie knows 
nothing about it as yet.” 

“ But she does.” 

“Who told her? You?” bluntly asked Adams. 

Mr. Magrane related the story of Mrs. Courtenay’s 
visit to Mrs. Adams, adding that it was done with- 
out his, Magrane’s, knowledge. The other had 
listened attentively. 

“ So,” he cried quite excitedly, his eyes sparkling. 
“Tried to get Elsie to set up a claim to Trescotte, 
eh ? The little woman refused ? That’s like her. 
Hearts are always trumps with Elsie. I would have 
bet in advance that that was just what she would 
do.” 

“ She told Mrs. Courtenay she would do nothing 
to increase the misery of Mr. and Mrs. Trescotte, 
and that she loved you too well to think of anyone 
else than you as a husband.” 

“ Well, what can I do ? ” 














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MR. ADAMS ARRIVES. 


171 

“You can accept your marriage as true and 
binding and resume marital relations with Mrs. 
Adams.” 

“ But the boy ; hang it, Magrane ! I can’t go on 
pretending to be its father, and I must, unless I 
reflect on Elsie. I could get over the whole affair 
if it wasn’t for the boy, for I’ll confess the longer 
I’m away from Elsie the more I long for her. But 
I can’t get over the boy.” 

“ It’s difficult to advise you on that point.” 

The lawyer played with the locket on his chain 
as he tried to see a way out of the difficulty. 
Finally he said : 

“ See here, Adams, why not go to Trescotte and 
have a free talk with him ?” 

“ What for ? ” asked Adams, somewhat startled. 

“ Something may come of it.” 

“ I’ve got nothing to ask of him ; he has of me. 
He ought to come to me.” 

“That is true,” replied the lawyer. “But what 
Trescotte has to ask is so great that, sensitive as he 
is, he would shrink from seeking you. It would be 
a generous act to meet him more than halfway. 
An interview might lead to good results. Let me 
arrange to have you meet him at three to-morrow, 
and then come to me and see if there is not a 
straight road out of this tangle.” 

Adams after some demurral consented, wonder- 
ing what Mr. Magrane hoped to gain by such an 
interview. 















































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* 



4 





CHAPTER V. 

fortune’s fantastic sports. 

An hour before Mr. Adams was to meet Mr. 
Trescotte, as arranged by Mr. Magrane, a young 
woman alighted from a public hack and climbed the 
steps of the Trescotte residence. A lad of eight or 
nine years accompanied her. When the door was 
opened to her, and she asked for the lady of the 
house, she was told that Mrs. Trescotte was not at 
home. 

Evidently she accepted the phrase as an euphe- 
mism. 

“My call is on business, not a social one,” she 
said. 

The servant, considering it a case for the con- 
sideration of higher authority, turned her into the 
reception room and disappeared. A moment later 
Downs, self-respectful and deferential, came and 
repeated the information with the addition that 
his mistress had gone out in the carriage and was 
expected home every moment. 

“I have come a long distance,” explained the 
young woman, "and my time is limited.” 

Downs, with that expertness born of long and 


172 










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FORTUNES FANTASTIC SPORTS. 17 3 

varied experience, determined that the visitor was a 
lady, and suggested the propriety of waiting. This 
was what the lady wanted, and Downs, thinking she 
was wearied, and perceiving that she was cold, 
brought her a glass of wine, a thoughtful attention 
which emboldened the lady to ask if Mr. Trescotte 
was at home or abroad. Downs began to have 
doubts of the wisdom of his suggestion when the 
lady, on being informed that the master of the house 
was within doors, and would doubtless see her if she 
desired it, showed so much agitation in her dis- 
claimer of such desire. But having doubts is not 
always having warrant for action, so Downs did 
nothing more than draw the curtains back and let 
in a little more sunshine through those windows that 
opened upon Central Park. 

The lady waited. Ten or fifteen minutes passed 
and there was a diversion. A quick step in the hall, 
and Trescotte entered the room. Surprised to find 
an occupant, he hesitated on the threshold an 
instant, then bowed courteously and crossed the 
room for the book he sought. Had he closely 
observed the lady then, he would have seen that the 
color left her face on his entrance, then surged back, 
suffusing it. He was about to leave the room with- 
out speech, but he stopped, bending a perplexed 
glance upon the lady. 

“I presume you are awaiting the return of Mrs. 
Trescotte?” 

The lady bowed in response. 

“I do not think she will be long now,” he said 
































































































* 








174 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

without losing his perplexed expression. “Can I 
serve you in any way?” 

Replying in the negative, the lady thanked him, 
but in so low and strained a voice that the child 
looked up at his mother in surprise. Trescotte left 
the room, his face showing that memory suggested 
he should know the lady, but had failed to tell him 
who she was. 

Then followed a period of undisturbed waiting, 
during which time the lady had ample time to 
recover from the agitation into which she had been 
thrown by Trescotte’s entrance, but which time she 
spent in drawing the boy to her and earnestly study- 
ing his features. By and by a carriage was rapidly 
driven to the front, and the watchful Buttons threw 
open the door to admit two ladies. Downs appeared 
and informed one of them that a lady was awaiting 
her in the reception room. All of which the waiting 
lady could hear through the open doors, but could 
not see. 

“Go to my room, Lou, and let Marie give you 
some writing materials,” she heard one lady say. 
“And, Downs, let Connor prepare himself to carry 
a note to the address Mrs. Trevor-Alien will give 
him.” 

The owner of the voice entered the reception 
room, holding in her hand the card Downs had given 
her. 

4 'Mrs. Adams?” 

She was smiling and pleasant. 

“Mrs. Trescotte, I believe?” 














































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FORTUNE'S FANTASTIC SPORTS. 175 

The visitor arose, looking with keen but modest 
scrutiny upon the mistress of the house. 

“Pray do not rise,” said Dorothy. “Pardon me, if 
I go to the fire. It is very cold, is it not?” 

Mrs. Adams, again much agitated, murmured that 
she had found it so, had been much chilled, but 
the servant had thoughtfully given her a glass of 
wine. 

This exchange was followed by an embarrassing 
silence. Dorothy drew off her gloves, holding her 
pink and white fingers to the fire, wondering the 
while who her visitor could be, and what her busi- 
ness could be about. Mrs. Adams nervously turned 
her pocket-book over and over. The child, feeling 
strange, hid behind his mother, peeping out to watch 
the elegant lady bending over the coals. At length 
Dorothy, who had been expecting her visitor to 
open her business, began to think that distance 
restrained her, and so took a chair nearer. 

“I fear I have given you a long wait,” she said in 
the way of re-opening the conversation. 

“I was in hopes,” began the other, in a voice that 
trembled a little, “that my card would convey such 
knowledge of myself as to relieve me of the embar- 
rassment of telling who I am.” 

Dorothy, flinging a quick, intense look upon Mrs. 
Adams, hastily left her seat, and going to the mantel 
took from it the card she had laid upon it and 
eagerly scanned it. She moved forward as if to 
rejoin her visitor, stood still, in unbounded amaze- 
ment. She breathed rather than articulated : 































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V 
















176 SHOULD SEE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

“You are ” She got no farther. She was 

lost in a multitude of conjecture. 

Mrs. Adams lifted a piteous, appealing face. She 
had found something condemning in Dorothy’s 
manner. 

“Do not be angry with me,” she pleaded. “I am 
here only to assure you of my sympathy and friend- 
ship.” 

“Angry with you?” 

All the rich sympathy of Dorothy’s nature had 
been stirred by the sweet face on which was written 
so much suffering, and yearning for love and compas- 
sion. Her tone told Mrs. Adams she was not angry. 

“It would have been very hard,” continued Elsie, 
as she wound her arm about the boy, who had crept 
to her knee, “if you had repulsed me, for my com- 
ing to you has been so opposed.” 

Unacquainted with the purpose of her visitor, per- 
plexed in her endeavor to penetrate its meaning, 
and embarrassed by the strangeness of the situation, 
which even yet in its entirety she had not compre- 
hended, Dorothy did not know what to reply. 

“You have something to tell me,” she finally said. 

“After all, it is very little,” answered Mrs. Adams 
with touching simplicity. “It is that I will never 
harm you, or do anything to separate you from the 
man you love.” 

Dorothy was more perplexed. 

“I cannot understand you,” she cried, and in her 
perplexity her voice sounded sharply, as she was 
instantly aware. “There is something to be ex- 



















FORTUNE' S FANTASTIC SPORTS . 


177 


plained,” she continued in a gentler tone, “some- 
thing I should know. But this is not the place for 
such a talk as we should have. Come.” 

But where should they go? Her own room was 
occupied by Mrs. Trevor-Alien ; in the library, her 
husband awaited an appointment; in the dining 
room, the servants were preparing lunch ; the salon 
was too public. The music room was the only place. 

“Come,” she said ; “we will go where we can be 
safe from interruption.” 

Mrs. Adams rose to follow, and stretched forth her 
hand to take that of her boy, when the outer door 
was opened and a man’s voice was heard inquiring 
for Mr. Trescotte. 

Mrs. Adams stopped, fairly staggered, and caught 
the back of the chair, and bending forward listened 
with halting breath. Dorothy had stopped on hear- 
ing the voice, but only to permit the caller to pass 
through the hall before they should enter it. She 
turned to say so to Mrs. Adams, when she was 
astounded to see the agitation of the other. 

“Are you the gentleman to see Mr. Trescotte at 
three?” asked the servant. 

“Yes.” 

The servant led the caller down the hall. They 
could be heard but not seen from the reception room. 

“Who was that?” eagerly asked Mrs. Adams, even 
with feverish intensity. 

“I do not know — a caller upon Mr. Trescotte,” 
was Dorothy’s wondering reply. 

“It cannot be — cannot be possible,” exclaimed 














4 






J 7 8 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

Mrs. Adams, relaxing her strained attention, now 
that the chance of a rencounter had passed. “I 
thought it was my husband’s voice, but that is 
impossible — impossible.” 

“Indeed, I should think so,” replied Dorothy with 
a reassuring smile. 

It was remarkable to Dorothy, that Mrs. Adams, 
who bore such a peculiar relation to her own life, 
and whom she had never expected to see, should be 
under her roof, but that at the same time her hus- 
band, Adams, separated a year from his wife, should 
call to see Mr. Trescotte when the wife had called 
to see her, was too fantastical even for the happen- 
ings of chance. 

“Rest assured,” she continued kindly. “The 
gentleman who passed has an appointment with my 
husband. Had it been Mr. Adams, I should have 
known it.” 

But Mr. Trescotte, uncertain as to the outcome 
of the interview with Mr. Adams, had thought it 
best not to speak of it to his wife. So, satisfying 
Elsie, Dorothy led the way across the hall, through 
the salon , into the music room. Here she sum- 
moned a servant and, bidding him to prevent inter- 
ruption and to beg Mrs. Trevor-Alien to excuse her 
for a short time, closed the doors. 




























































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CHAPTER VI. 


A NEW TANGLE. 

Adams yielded to Mr. Magrane’s suggestion 
reluctantly. He was not convinced that good could 
result from an interview. The trouble was that 
Adams was not determined upon a course. He was 
without a policy. Enterprises he had been nursing 
a long time had, within the year, come to fruition, 
and he had accumulated wealth. The administra- 
tion of it was difficult, because of the uncertain con- 
ditions of his marital relations. Viewing divorce as 
one path out of the difficulty, yet he shrank from 
the cutting of all the ties binding him to Elsie. He 
had gone to Mr. Magrane expecting to be strength- 
ened toward divorce and found the lawyer advising 
reconciliation. To this he was more than inclined. 
But the boy — Trescotte’s boy — that was the stum- 
bling-block. If the boy could be disposed of, the 
way would be clear. Reconciliation meant the 
assumption of the parentage of another man’s off- 
spring. Against this he revolted. 

It was in this indeterminate state of mind that he 
met Trescotte. There was a great deal of embar- 
rassment upon both sides. When they exchanged 
views Adams discovered that one consideration 


179 





































































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180 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

alone swayed Trescotte, and before that all others 
were small; Trescotte wanted the cloud upon the 
marriage certificate of Dorothy lifted ; it was for 
Dorothy’s sake, not his own. Trescotte soon learned 
that Adams was half-hearted in his desire for a 
divorce from Elsie, and was deterred by fear of the 
scandal that would result from such a procedure; 
it was for Elsie’s sake, not his own. There were 
reserves upon the part of each which prevented 
them from getting close to the subject they dis- 
cussed. Trescotte did not urge a restoration of 
relationship between Adams and Elsie which would 
make the common law marriage a fact, because there 
was the five months he had spent with Elsie, which 
seemed to him indelicate to call up. Adams did 
not show Trescotte that the bar to restoration was 
the boy, the consequence of that five months, be- 
cause Trescotte did not have knowledge of the child. 
So the conference came to naught. Adams brought 
it to an end by saying : 

'‘Well, Mr. Trescotte, we’re agreed upon one thing. 
We don’t want our wives involved in scandal. I’ll 
promise that whatever course I pursue will involve 
no scandal. I suppose I could sue for divorce on 
the ground of abandonment, and arrange to have 
the validity of the first marriage to come up some 
way for settlement. Frankly, I should like to have 
the matter settled, for my own sake as well as 
yours, and I had just as soon see the validity of it 
established as not, for if it was, it would be no bar 
to divorce proceedings.” 





















































A NEW TANGLE. 


181 

“I should be the last one, anxious as I am for 
Mrs. Trescotte,” promptly replied Trescotte, “to 
encourage divorce proceedings. The establishment 
of the legality of your marriage would be a very 
happy thing for Mrs. Trescotte and myself. But 
neither of us, I hope, are so lost to the rights of 
others as to try to secure such a result through the 
misery and unhappiness of Mrs. Adams. I am told 
that Mrs. Adams entertains all her old affection for 
you. I would much rather see a happy adjustment 
of your difficulties.” 

Adams put out his hand and grasped that of 
Trescotte warmly. 

“I know you would,” he said heartily. “You are 
that kind of a man. But — well, Mr. Trescotte, there 
is something in the way that I cannot speak to you 
about — nothing,” he added quickly, “that reflects 
upon the good name or repute of Mrs. Adams.” 

Again that sensitiveness as to Elsie. It struck 
Mr. Trescotte as pathetic. 

While this was going forward in the library, Doro- 
thy and Elsie were conferring in the music room. 

“You say,” said Dorothy after she had closed the 
doors, “that you have come to give me the assur- 
ance of sympathy ; that you will do nothing to sepa- 
rate me from the man I love. Am I in danger of 
separation?” 

“Are you not?” asked Elsie in some wonder. 

“I do not think so.” 

“Your mother said you ought to be, and pleaded 
with me to claim Mr. Trescotte as my husband ” 






















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1 82 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

“My mother ?” interrupted Dorothy, scarcely 
believing that she had'heard aright. 

“Yes ; I refused, and immediately, believe me, Mrs. 
Trescotte, immediately.” 

“Where?” demanded Dorothy. “Where did you 
see my mother?” 

The story that Mrs. Courtenay had carefully kept 
to herself came out, and Dorothy knew of the rapid 
journey to Buffalo, and the defeat of her mother. 
Dorothy was angry. Angry because of her mother’s 
unwarrantable methods, and because of the cruelty 
to the crushed woman who had come to her in such 
simplicity and confidence. She found upon inquiry 
that all this time Elsie had remained in the belief 
that her marriage to Adams was invalid, and that 
Adams being free, hope of reconciliation was lost. 
Mourning and grieving over this in secret, the spirit 
of the once madcap, reckless, gay Elsie Hallock had 
been crushed. 

With earnestness and enthusiasm almost, Dorothy 
presented the common law marriage theory, trying 
to persuade Elsie that hope of reconciliation was far 
from lost, since she was still the wife in law and in 
fact. It is doubtful whether Elsie comprehended 
Dorothy’s important communication, for she shook 
her head sadly and seemed to regard Dorothy’s in- 
formation as only another complication in the con- 
fusion in which she was involved. But whether or 
not Elsie comprehended, Dorothy got back to the 
assertion that there was no danger to her of separa- 
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To this Elsie replied that she would not permit 
herself to be used to that end. 

“Used?” queried Dorothy. “There is something 
more in your mind?” 

“Yes,” answered Elsie. “This affair is so com- 
plicated that it is difficult to say all you want to. 
This is what I want to say to you — what I have 
come to you from Buffalo for. My brother has 
learned on good authority that Mr. Adams is here 
in the city preparing to sue me for divorce. I fear, 
though my brother denies it, that it is by arrange- 
ment with my brother or with my father, and that 
they mean to establish that there was no marriage 
between us, so that it will come down to the mar- 
riage in Switzerland. That means they would try 
to force me to claim Mr. Trescotte as a husband.” 

Dorothy winced under this and looked very 
severe. 

“That is what your mother wanted me to do. 
But I refused her, and I never will consent.” 

“But,” said Dorothy, a little hard, though she 
tried not to be. “What would it serve them? Mr. 
Trescotte would resist.” 

“He is very rich, is he not?” asked Elsie inno- 
cently. “Oh, the sordidness of it ! It is a miserable 
thing, and before the scandal is out I came here to 
save you this much misery and to tell you I will be 
no party to it. I have too much sympathy for you, 
for I know what it is to be torn from the man you 
love. I could not stay at home quietly until I had 
come and told you this. It seemed to be a duty.” 





1 84 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

She was so pathetic in her earnestness that Dor- 
othy, to conceal her own tears, bent over her and 
kissed her and whispered: “I know that; I’m sure 
of it.” 

Suddenly a thought crossed her mind and it must 
be admitted accompanied with a pang of jealousy. 

“Have you seen Mr. Trescotte?” 

“He came into the reception room when I was 
there,” replied Mrs. Adams somewhat distressed. 
“But he did not recognize me and I did not make 
myself known. I do not want to see him. It is 
embarrassing enough to come to you.” 

Dorothy bent her head in a tumult of rushing 
thought and alarm. She did not fear separation 
from Trescotte. She believed Mrs. Adams and 
trusted Trescotte, but she was apprehensive. There 
was the threatened scandal, the publicity, the gossip, 
and while she was very grateful to Mrs. Adams and 
felt sincere, active sympathy, still she wished Mrs. 
Adams was out of the house, out of all chance of 
meeting Trescotte. She wondered for a brief instant 
if a desire to see Trescotte was not really the mean- 
ing of Elsie’s visit, but she dismissed the idea as 
unworthy herself and of Mrs. Adams. 

The little boy, tired of a conversation from which 
he could extract no amusement, sat himself on the 
floor between the two women and played with the 
scattered sheets of music that had fallen from the 
stand. Had Dorothy known the relation this inno- 
cent lad bore to the tangle they were all involved 
in, what a complicating force he was in Elsie’s prob- 













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A NEW TANGLE. 


185 

lem, and might become in hers, possibly she might 
have given more attention to the little one playing 
so unobtrusively. As it was, too much absorbed in 
the ideas her conference with Elsie had given birth 
to, she was only dimly conscious that a child — Mrs. 
Adams’ child — was there. 

“You say,” she asked suddenly, “you still love 
Mr. Adams?” 

“With all my heart.” 

“Yet you are separated from him.” 

“I could not help it.” 

Wooed into confidence by Dorothy’s sympathy 
and kindliness, Mrs. Adams began to tell the reason. 
Almost immediately she saw it involved the pater- 
nity of the little child — Trescotte’s child. She 
recoiled from telling Trescotte’s wife the fact, not 
because she feared for herself, but instinct informed 
her that it would be a lightning stroke to the one 
who had risked so much to remain with the man of 
her love, to learn that that man was the father of 
a child of which she was not the mother. Elsie 
wondered how she could have brought the child 
there — why the fact that she was to visit the wife 
of its father had not occurred to her. She up- 
braided herself for her thoughtlessness and became 
filled only with one thought, and that, to leave the 
house as soon as possible. 

“Well, Mrs. Adams,” said Dorothy, who had been 
following her own thoughts, “we all of us will fear 
a suit if it is to open our history to the world. And 
we’ll hope that it will not come, but upon the con- 





1 86 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

trary, that you and your husband may be brought 
together again. Perhaps Mr. Trescotte can do 
something to show Mr. Adams that a marriage does 
exist between you, and that that in itself will bring 
about a reconciliation.” 

“I fear not,” Elsie said. “There are some things, 
apparently, Mr. Adams will not forgive. If you feel 
I am sincere when I say nothing will persuade me 
to interfere with your happiness, I am content. I 
expect no happiness in my own life. But it will be 
a little less miserable if I can feel that I have pre- 
vented your separation. I owe this to Mr. Tres- 
cotte, for he tried, at his own sacrifice, once to serve 
me in the highest manner a man can serve a woman. 
I want him to know I have not forgotten what he 
did then ; that I am filled with remorse that I was 
so weak at that time. And now that I have met 
you, I want you to know for yourself that nothing 
I may do will ever interfere with your happiness. 
And if you do, I will go home, perhaps never to see 
you again.” 

She arose to end the interview — to escape with 
her boy from the house of his father. Dorothy rose 
with her, and threw open the door leading into the 
salon. 

Mrs. Trevor-Alien stood within. 

“I was tired of being alone,” she laughed, “so I 
came down into this favorite room of mine.” 

Dorothy was making some commonplace apology 
for having left her so long alone, when she heard her 
husband’s voice outside the door. 



A NEW TANGLE. 187 

“I hear my wife’s voice in the salon" he said. 
“Let me present you.” 

The next instant Trescotte, followed by Adams, 
entered. 

“Elsie! My God!” cried Adams. 

“George, I ” 

Elsie nearly toppled over in her agitation, and, 
indeed, would have fallen had not Mrs. Trevor-Alien 
put forth an arm to save her. 

“ Elsie,” cried Trescotte, with a sudden rush of 
recollection, “what brings ” 

In his surprise he moved toward Elsie and the 
movement brought him to the side of the child 
clinging to his mother’s skirts. He was interrupted 
by Mrs. Trevor-Alien, who uttered a cry of surprise. 

“Look!” she said, pointing to the child. “The 
resemblance. It is marvelous !” 

“And that boy is with her!” cried Adams bitterly. 
“Your boy, Trescotte — for it is yours!” 

“His?” 

The question came from Dorothy in a blending of 
contempt, indignation, and incredulity. The little 
child began to whimper when he found himself the 
object of all these intense and agitated looks, and 
tried to hide his face in the skirts of his mother. 
But Dorothy had seen the resemblance, too pro- 
nounced to be denied. 

“Answer him,” she said commandingly, as she 
turned to Trescotte. “Is that your child?” 

Amazed and bewildered, Trescotte replied 

“I don’t know.” 





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i88 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


Adams laughed bitterly. 

The weight of Mrs. Adams became heavier on 
the arm of Mrs. Trevor-Alien. 

“She has fainted,” quietly remarked that lady. 

Trescotte led Adams out of the room. Dorothy, 
with a heart full of bitterness, joined Mrs. Trevor- 
Alien in the effort to revive the mother of her 
husband’s eldest child. 


BOOK IV.— THE TRIUMPH OF THE BLUE 
RIBBON. 


CHAPTER I. 

MOMENTOUS EVENTS. 

In the following February occurred three events 
of concern, all within a week and in the order named : 

A baby, a little girl, came to the house of Tres- 
cotte ; 

Mrs. Trevor-Alien became a widow, her husband 
having died after a brief illness; and 

Mr. and Mrs. Hermann Waldemar returned from 
Germany to begin a career of fashion in New York. 

The first event again put into malignant activity 
the gossiping tongues, which, having accomplished 
the ostracism of Mr. and Mrs. Trescotte, had stilled 
from sheer weariness. And Mrs. Courtenay, learn- 
ing of its renewal, and knowing of the near approach 
of her other daughter, wondered, with a little trepi- 
dation, what the effect would be on Waldemar. 
When she saw Hilda, however, her concern was of 
another kind. A marvelous change had come over 
Hilda. What had happened in the four months of 

189 













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19 ° SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

her wedded life? This was a question Mrs. Courte- 
nay frequently asked herself, without satisfactory 
answer. The fire was gone from Hilda’s eyes and 
there was listlessness in her manner. It was not 
because of the Trescotte gossip, for Hilda languidly 
approved Dorothy’s course, and shocked her mother 
by remarking indifferently that without the common 
law marriage phase, she would have approved it. 
The promise of social triumphs did not appeal to 
her. She accepted the programme of social festivi- 
ties Mrs. Courtenay had laid out for her, with the 
comment that they were the penalties a bride must 
endure. She was interested in nothing. Only when 
there were strangers present, or some of her old rivals 
on the matrimonial course, was anything seen of 
that gallant and haughty bearing of the favorite 
Courtenay daughter. Discreet questioning failed to 
elicit information. She had enjoyed her trip, she 
had been charmingly received by Waldemar’s noble 
relatives, and she had been noticed and compli- 
mented by the emperor. Had Waldemar been 
attentive? Oh, yes, he had been all that had been 
necessary. And here inquiries ended. Mrs. Walde- 
mar had no complaints to make, and Hilda Courte- 
nay had passed away. 

Mrs. Courtenay took up a course of silent observa- 
tion, but with little, if any, more success. What she 
did learn did not please her. She found that Wal- 
demar took up his life in New York just as he had 
laid it down to go abroad on his wedding trip. His 
stable, his club, and his other pleasures did not lan- 















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MOMENTOUS EVENTS. 


191 


guish for lack of his attention. Though Mrs. Wal- 
demar’s chair in their box at the autumn season of 
opera was always occupied, that of Hermann was 
nearly always vacant. But as Hilda did not com- 
plain, Mrs. Courtenay could not interfere. The 
world said behind Hilda’s back that Hilda Walde- 
mar had grown unbearably insolent since her 
marriage. 

Hilda went to see Dorothy within twenty-four 
hours of her landing and frequently thereafter. She 
was more tender and affectionate with her sister than 
was her wont, and nestling the little stranger in her 
arms, dropped tears on its face she was ashamed to 
show. Dorothy saw the change in Hilda and could 
not tell what it was. A change in Dorothy was 
noticed by Hilda and neither could she penetrate 
that. Whatever these changes were they drew the 
two sisters closer together than they had ever been 
before. 

The first time Hilda went to see Dorothy she met 
Trescotte in the hall as she was leaving. 

“I want to ask you some questions,” she said, 
after she had lifted her cheek to be kissed by her 
brother-in-law. 

Divining what they would be, Trescotte took her 
into the library and closed the door. 

“There has been some trouble about your mar- 
riage, Henry,” she said, as she seated herself in a 
large easy-chair. "Tell me about it.” 

“You have heard nothing, then?” he asked. 

“Only enough to know there was something,” she 






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192 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


replied. “Hermann’s father wrote a mere mention 
of it while we were abroad.” 

Trescotte told her the story without color or argu- 
ment, ending with the common law marriage aspect. 

“I am glad you have told me the story,” she said 
simply when he had finished. “I uphold you and 
Dorothy in everything you have done. Happiness 
is worth more than all society can give you — ten 
times more. She is happy, isn’t she?” 

Trescotte’s face was very sober as he replied : 

“I don’t think I ever saw anyone happier than she 
was until the occurrence of a certain event in Decem- 
ber. Then there was a change in her. I am not 
prepared to say that it affected her happiness, but 
it did make a change, though Dr. Balkin told me to 
dismiss the idea, as it was only a symptom. Doctors 
explain everything by symptoms.” 

Hilda looked at him searchingly for a moment. A 
spasm of pain, quickly repressed, passed over her 
face as she said : 

“You are a very good man, Henry.” 

She rose from her seat. As she walked to the 
door, she said : 

“When Dorothy is well enough I will give a din- 
ner. Some friends are coming over to whom I must 
be nice. They will be here about the time Dorothy 
can go out.” 

“You know we do not go into society at all,” sug- 
gested Trescotte. 

“You make a mistake,” said the bride bitterly. 
“Society! Society is a spaniel. Whip it and it 






















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MOMENTOUS EVENTS. 


*93 


cringes at your feet. What a contempt for it I 
have.” 

She left Trescotte amazed at her mood. 

The change Trescotte had spoken of as apparent 
in Dorothy had been noticed by Mrs. Trevor-Alien 
as well. After the event of the meeting of Mr. and 
Mrs. Adams in the Trescotte house on that Decem- 
ber afternoon, there could be no withholding of con- 
fidence from that lady. She had learned enough to 
make knowledge of all necessary. And when Mrs. 
Adams left the house, all was told her by Trescotte 
at Dorothy’s request. 

That afternoon was as embarrassing as any Tres- 
cotte had ever passed. It was more so than the 
morning of nine years previous, in that little town 
of Switzerland, when he had married Elsie, for then 
he saw a way out. Now he didn’t. Adams had left 
immediately upon the denouement. Mrs. Adams 
was compelled to remain until she recovered strength 
enough to go. When she did, she was accompanied 
by the discreet and trusty Downs, who went with 
her to the station and saw her comfortably bestowed 
on her journey to Buffalo. In the meantime Tres- 
cotte was immured in his library, alone with his 
thoughts, left to ponder upon the extraordinary 
happenings of chance ; upon the singular situation of 
his wife, Dorothy, ministering to the needs of his 
once wife, Elsie; of the child, of whose existence he 
had no knowledge until so rudely and shockingly 
revealed to him, and who he now knew was the inno- 
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194 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


These thoughts weighed heavily upon a man of Tres- 
cotte’s make-up. What course was he to pursue? 
Existing, the boy was a bar to a reconciliation of 
Mr. and Mrs. Adams. His interview with Adams 
had shown how fond Adams was of Elsie. The 
boy — his boy — stood in the way. And he had not 
failed, amid his amazement at the revelation that he 
was the father of a lad eight years old, to notice the 
change in Dorothy’s tone and manner following that 
revelation. Was the unfortunate child to wreck the 
happiness of Dorothy and himself, as he had that of 
Adams and Elsie? What could he do to avert it? 
In fact, what could he do in any direction? Elsie 
loved the lad, perhaps all the more because he was 
so unfortunate and the cause of so much trouble. 
That was the way with mothers. Suppose Elsie 
were willing to give up the lad, and he took him, 
would not Dorothy look upon him from her stand- 
point, as Adams had from his? What happiness if, 
while the child was pure and innocent, the Almighty 
in his mercy would take the boy to himself. The 
thought did not seem impious, and it would be such 
a solution of the vexed problem. 

When Mrs. Adams had gone Dorothy brought 
Mrs. Trevor-Alien to Trescotte and requested him 
to tell their story. 

When he had finished, before any remark could 
be made by Mrs. Trevor-Alien, Dorothy spoke, her 
manner cold and her voice hard : 

“And the boy? You have omitted all mention of 
him.” 


























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MOM EN TO US E VEN TS. 195 

“I did not know of his existence until this after- 
noon.” 

“I am glad to hear you say so,” said Dorothy, 
still in her hard, severe tone. “To have learned 
that you knew of his existence and had been so 
indifferent to him would have lessened you in my 
esteem.” 

Trescotte looked at Dorothy so astounded and so 
pained that Mrs. Trevor-Alien was filled with pity 
for him. 

“And now that you do know that he exists, what?” 
demanded Dorothy. 

“It complicates matters,” replied Trescotte sadly. 

“Will you take him to your own care?” Her 
question was asked almost fiercely. 

“He has a mother.” 

“And I am not that mother! ” 

Trescotte, too much distressed to appreciate at 
its full significance this cry, went to the window and 
looked out. But light flooded the mind of Mrs. 
Trevor-Alien. She saw that a profound jealousy 
possessed Dorothy; that with all the force of her 
deep love for Trescotte, she resented the inexorable 
fact that her husband was the father of a child of 
which she was not the mother. It was a strange 
manifestation. Dorothy knew of the previous mar- 
riage, she knew of the five months Trescotte had 
lived with Elsie, and had not resented it. Indeed, 
she had received Elsie without a pang of jealousy. 
Yet when the boy, a natural issue of that brief union, 
was presented she was transformed. Trescotte 



I9 6 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

wondered at this; he w^s a man. Mrs. Trevor- 
Alien did not ; she was a woman. 

Dorothy left the room. Trescotte, hearing the 
rustle of her skirts, turned and would have restrained 
her. Mrs. Trevor-Alien put up a warning finger, 
and in a low tone said : 

“Leave her to me.” 

She followed Dorothy. No sooner had they 
reached her room than Dorothy, flinging herself into 
Mrs. Trevor-Allen’s arms, burst into tears. 

The jealousy of women is incomprehensible. It 
has no reason. It neither thinks nor argues. It 
simply is, and its vision is distorted. It sees what 
no person can. It imagines, and its imaginings are 
pitiful because the effects are real in the sorrow and 
misery they bring. That which is absurd to others 
is plausible to a jealous woman. With a woman so 
possessed one cannot reason. The best and noblest 
of their sex are subject to these attacks, and when 
attacked are without sense. Ridicule or condemna- 
tion is the only remedy. Mrs. Trevor-Alien under- 
stood this. 

Waiting until the paroxysm was exhausted, Mrs. 
Trevor-Alien led Dorothy to a chair and sat her 
down. 

“You must be ill,” she said, “or you would not act 
so foolishly.” 

Dorothy, expecting sympathy, looked up indig- 
nantly. 

“I mean it,” went on her friend gravely. “You 
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I9 8 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

you have the audacity, the wickedness, to harbor 
bitter thoughts, instead of giving him that sympathy 
he so much needs when so afflicted. It is the most 
pitiable exhibition of ingratitude I have ever seen. 
It is selfish, it is contemptible, and to me distress- 
ing, because I have revered you as a noble woman. 
It is petty jealousy, and I am ashamed of you.” 

“Lou Graham ! ” cried Dorothy, springing to her 
feet, her eyes blazing, going back to the girl-day 
name of her friend. “I’ll not listen to you !” 

“You must !” insisted the other stoutly. “It is 
because I am your friend that I say what I do. 
What right have you to quarrel with Fortune? Did 
you not marry where you loved? Did you not 
choose for yourself? Have not flowers been strewn 
in your path? Have not love and tenderness 
enveloped you? Look at me —at me, and be un- 
happy, if you dare. Forced to marry an old man 
whose life reeks with the filth of it ; sacrificed to 
save my family from the poverty he could put it 
in, and the station from which he could hurl it ; 
compelled to put aside the romance that could 
bring joy and sweetness into my life, to see two 
lives wrecked, to live without joy and without hope, 
to know the sacrifice I had made was regarded as 
treachery to the love I had confessed and the prom- 
ises I had pledged, to see the man I loved and who 
loved me, sink and pass away, believing that sordid 
ambition had made me faithless, without the power 
to explain, and then tell me what you have to com- 
plain of? What is it? What? Your husband has 




























































MOMEN TO US E VENTS. 1 9 9 

discovered that he is the father of a child five years 
older than your acquaintance with him !” 

Dorothy, with outstretched arms, her face tender 
with sweet pity, went to her friend, crying: 

“Forgive me. And you wear your life so 
bravely.” 




CHAPTER II. 


MRS. TREVOR-ALLEN’S PLAN. 

The revelation of the sorrow and bitterness of 
Mrs. Trevor-Allen’s life drew Dorothy more closely 
to her friend. The latter knew her friend envied her 
the happiness of her life, was proud of it, yet pitied 
her friend for what was denied her. While this was 
all true, an intangible, impalpable something had 
come up between Dorothy and Trescotte. Dorothy 
felt it, because it had existence in herself. Trescotte 
felt it, because he noted its existence in Dorothy. 
It was difficult to establish what and where it was. 
There was the same attention, the same tenderness, 
the same devotion, the same love upon the part of 
Trescotte. There was the same admiration, the 
same confidence, the same trust, the same love on 
the part of Dorothy. It was the shadow of the 
boy. He did not carry it with him when he went 
away with his mother. Shadows are intangible. 
How was it shown? Ah, that was as impalpable as 
the thing itself. Both were conscious of it, though 
it was not mentioned by either. When two lives 
are completely mingled, the shade of an expression 
and the glance of an eye have an eloquence words 
cannot express. Dorothy could not pardon fate for 



























































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MRS. TREVOR-ALLEN'S PLAN. 


201 


giving to another woman what she believed should 
have been hers. Such emotion could be possessed 
only by a woman passionately loving her husband. 
While Dorothy loved her husband, admired him, 
held him guiltless, yet she vented her deep disap- 
pointment on him. I do not attempt to account 
for this. To do so would be to confess myself a 
fool. He who attempts to account for the workings 
of the female heart is a fool. All he can hope to do 
is to detect its operations and hold them up to 
view, and ninety times in a hundred he fails at 
that. Explain? Explain the motive power of the 
stars in their heavenly courses. The female heart 
is one of God’s incomprehensibilities. 

When the baby came there was another change. 
Something of the old something slid out of sight. 
Trescotte was very proud and tender. And Doro- 
thy was very proud and tender, because he was 
proud. Perhaps if Mrs. Trevor-Alien could have 
been a witness of their exchanges of affection she 
would have plumed herself upon having contributed 
to it by the drastic potion she had administered to 
Dorothy. But she did not. 

Duty called her to the bedside of the man whose 
name she bore. There was no love, for she pro- 
fessed none, behind that duty, but she performed it 
with all the fidelity love could inspire. A frame 
weakened by years of self-indulgence could not at 
its advanced age withstand the insidious attack of 
disease, and he died, leaving her his vast fortune, 
as testimony, his will said, to his admiration of her 

























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202 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


as a woman, and her excellence as a wife. This will 
created astonishment, and caused the matron 
mothers, who recognized in the new widow a formid- 
able quantity in their problems, over their teacups 
to comment: “No fool like an old fool,” and Mr. 
Magrane to say, with the applause of Mr. Trescotte, 
“Whatever the old fellow was, he appreciated a true 
woman when he found her.” Mr. Trevor-Alien was 
buried, and society attended in large numbers, just as 
if he had been the wisest and best of men. And Mrs. 
Trevor-Alien in robes of black, donned because con- 
vention demanded them, a very charming widow, 
laughed gayly without a single pretense of sorrow, 
because she was not a hypocrite. 

Summer came and went. Society flitted from the 
city and flitted back. This summer the Trescottes 
did not keep open house in the city. A cottage on 
the coast of Maine had been purchased, and there 
also Mrs. Trevor-Alien went to spend the months 
supposed to be devoted to mourning. When all 
involved in this tale returned to the city, the con- 
ditions were unchanged. Adams was upon the 
Pacific Coast and Elsie was with her father. Not a 
step toward the unraveling of the tangle had been 
taken. 

One evening in the late autumn Mrs. Trevor- 
Alien and Mr. Magrane dined with the Trescottes. 
They met frequently at that table, now that Mrs. 
Trevor-Alien was withdrawn from society. The 
two were sitting apart after dinner while Mr. and 
Mrs. Trescotte were entertaining Mr. Courtenay, 






MRS. TREVOR- ALLEN’S ELAN. 


203 


who had dropped in as he did once or twice a 
week. 

Suddenly Mrs. Trevor-Alien changed the topic of 
conversation : 

“Mr. and Mrs. Adams have not been reconciled 
yet?” 

“No,” replied Mr. Magrane, rather startled by the 
abrupt manner the subject had been introduced. 
“It is singular you should speak of it to-day, for I 
have just received a letter from Adams, announcing 
his early return and his determination to arrive at 
some settlement of his marital perplexities.” 

“Do you know what h.e proposes?” asked the 
lady. 

“No. He gives no indications.” He laughed 
amusedly. “I tried to bring about a reconciliation 
the last time he was here. I laid a deep and, as I 
thought, astute plan. But chance broke it up. I 
got him to call on Trescotte, but as ill luck would 
have it, he met Mrs. Adams here and the boy — his 
stumbling-block.” 

“I was here at the time.” 

“Oh, were you? Adams said there was a lady 
other than Mrs. Trescotte present.” 

“The boy is handsome and attractive,” said the 
widow. 

“Is he? And resembles his father, I hear,” 
laughed Mr. Magrane. 

“Marvelously. His mother is very fond of him.” 

“Mothers usually are fond of their sons, are they 
not?” 












































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204 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


“I was much attracted to the mother — Mrs. 
Adams, you know.” 

“She is a very sweet woman — so Adams says.” 

“Then why does he not become reconciled ?” asked 
the widow. 

“The boy, you know.” 

“Ah, the poor little fellow. He stands between 
his mother and happiness.” Mrs. Trevor-Alien was 
sad and thoughtful. 

Mr. Magrane looked down upon her admiringly, 
wondering whether he liked her best in her gay or 
her sympathetic mood. 

“ I have been in correspondence with Mrs. Adams,” 
continued Mrs. Trevor-Alien. “I have conceived a 
great pity for her. I wish I could do something 
toward reconciliation. She longs for it — it has be- 
come a passion with her.” 

Dorothy overheard this statement during a lull in 
the conversation with her father and was surprised. 
She had heard nothing of this correspondence. 

“Did she write you so?” asked Mr. Magrane, 
much interested. 

“In express terms. Cannot we try again when 
Mr. Adams returns?” 

“If the boy could be disposed of, everything could 
be accomplished.” 

Dorothy listened intently. 

“It is a dreadful position to place a mother in,” 
mused Mrs. Trevor- Allen. 

“She must choose between husband and son.” 

“But things cannot go on as they are.” 



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MRS. TREVOR-ALLEN'S PLAN. 


205 


“Why not?” 

“Because Mr. Adams will not be content to per- 
mit them,” replied Mrs. Trevor-Alien. “Something 
public will be done, and in it the true parentage of 
the boy will be revealed.” 

Dorothy listened with parted lips, holding her 
breath lest she lose a word, thankful that her father 
was on his favorite topic of real estate. 

“That will be bad,” continued the widow, “not 
alone for Mrs. Adams, but for the boy as well.” 

“Ah !” 

The lawyer had not thought of that. 

“And you mean ” he asked. 

“That they must be reconciled.” 

“But how?” 

“In the interest of the boy himself, she must part 
with him. You see it is something more than a 
simple choice between son and husband.” 

“I see.” 

“I think,” went on Mrs. Trevor-Alien, warming to 
her subject, “that if the fact were properly put be- 
fore Mrs. Adams she would see it.” 

“A mother will not part with her child when she 
loves him,” remarked the lawyer sententiously. 

“A mother is capable of a sacrifice for her child 
you men cannot comprehend.” 

“Ah !” The tone was one of incredulity. 

“A mother’s love is without selfishness — the only 
unselfish thing I know in this selfish world.” 

“Except one thing,” said the lawyer, who had 
heard her story from Dorothy. 






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206 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


“And that is ” The lady looked up and 

caught his look of admiration and was annoyed that 
she had asked the question. 

“I cannot tell you now — some time perhaps I will. 
But what could she do with the child?” He lowered 
his voice so much that Dorothy could not hear him. 
“Give him to our friend Trescotte?” 

“No,” hurriedly responded the lady. “That 
would never do at all ! I will take him, if she will 
give him to me.” 

“You?” 

“I will adopt him. I am alone. I would adore 
the little one.” 

“But if you married again, what would the hus- 
band say?” 

The charming widow laughed merrily, and saucily 
tossing her blond curls with that coquetry no 
woman can resist displaying when her own marriage 
is spoken of, replied : 

“I will never marry; once will suffice for me. 
Besides, if I do, the man must marry the boy with 
the other incumbrance.” 

Mr. Magrane’s fine dark eyes deepened as he 
laughed with her. She became sober suddenly, and 
as she leaned toward him, bent beseeching eyes upon 
him. 

“Now, Mr. Magrane, let us be serious. Can’t 
this be done? See what will result. Mrs. Adams 
will be restored to her husband, the lad’s parentage 
will be prevented as a reproach, a scandal which 
might involve our friends will be avoided, and 






MRS. TREVOR-ALLEN'S PLAN . 


207 


I, m my loneliness, will have something to care 
for.” 

Dorothy heard it all, and was at once a prey to 
confusing and conflicting emotions. She looked to 
see if her husband had heard. She was convinced 
he had not. 

“Well, I don’t know,” replied the lawyer thought- 
fully. “Are you in earnest?” 

“Entirely so,” answered the lady sincerely. “It 
is not a sudden impulse. I have been thinking of it 
a long time. I have been waiting to meet you and 
ask you to undertake it.” 

“Let me think about it,” said the lawyer, as he 
rose. “I will see you to-morrow evening if you will 
receive me, and talk it over again.” 

He took his leave, and as he descended the steps 
he saw a carriage drawn up in front. As he turned 
in the direction he was to go, he heard his name 
spoken. A woman was looking through the open 
window of the carriage. In the uncertain light he 
could not distinguish her features. As he approached 
he recognized Mrs. Waldemar and saw she was much 
agitated. 

“You have been dining with Dorothy and Henry?” 
she asked anxiously. 

“Yes.” 

“Tell me who were of the party?” 

“Only Mrs. Trevor-Alien and myself.” 

“Is she stopping with them?” 

“No; she is awaiting the coming of her carriage.” 

“Then she is the only one with them?” 




























208 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIMt 


“No; your father is there, but he was not at the 
dinner.” 

Mrs. Waldemar plainly showed increased agita- 
tion. 

“Thank you, Mr. Magrane,” she said, “please tell 
the driver to go on.” 

He complied with her request, and the driver 
asked where he should drive to. Hilda heard him 
and cried out : 

“Anywhere. Around the block, anywhere, only 
hurry.” 

Astonished, Mr. Magrane watched the carriage 
drive away. Then he walked off in the opposite 
direction, and at the corner of the street waited for 
a car which passed on the cross street. He waited 
long enough to see a carriage, which he was satisfied 
was the one occupied by Hilda, turn the corner and 
take up a station on the opposite side of the street 
at a point from which a view of the Trescotte door 
could be commanded. 

“Something’s wrong,” he said to himself as he 
stepped into the car which bore him away. 













































CHAPTER III. 


HILDA'S ESCAPE. 

Had Mr. Magrane waited for the next car, he 
would have seen, as soon as Mr. Courtenay left 
the house, the carriage cross the street, Hilda alight 
and run up the steps of the Trescotte house, and the 
carriage drive away. 

It so happened that as the door was opened to 
admit Hilda, Dorothy passed into the hall. As 
Hilda came forward Dorothy saw her. She was 
shocked. There was wildness, fear, despair in 
Hilda's face. 

“Hilda !” 

Alarm and amazement were in Dorothy’s tones. 
Her outcry brought Trescotte and Mrs. Trevor-Alien 
from the salon . In the way Hilda put out her hands 
to Dorothy there was a suggestion of the sense of 
having reached a safe haven. 

“Take me in and keep me!” she said. 

“Have you left your home?” asked Dorothy, 
greatly frightened. 

“Yes.” 

“And your husband?” 

“Yes.” 

Before Dorothy could ask more questions, Mrs. 


209 





210 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


Trevor-Alien laid her hand upon Dorothy's arm and 
said : 

“Wait. Take her to your own room.” 

Dorothy led the unresisting Hilda up the stairs. 
Mrs. Trevor-Alien and Trescotte exchanged glances. 

“What is the meaning of this?” asked Trescotte. 

“The triumph of the blue ribbon,” replied the 
lady bitterly. 

In the meantime Dorothy had taken Hilda into 
her own room and removed her wraps and hat. 
Seating her in a chair, Dorothy asked : 

“Now, dear, what is the trouble?” 

“I am safe here,” said Hilda with a sigh. 

Dorothy thought Hilda had asked a question. 

“Yes, safe from all interruption.” 

“He is waiting for me now at the opera house.” 

Dorothy noticed for the first time that Hilda was 
in evening dress with her diamonds and rubies. 

“Who?” she asked. 

“I took the carriage to join him, but I was fright- 
ened and came here.” 

“But who, child, who?” 

A mighty fear took possession of Dorothy; a 
wave of possibilities and conjecture broke over 
her. 

“Lord Buttontrave. I was to go with him to 
France. Our passage is engaged on the Champagne'' 

“Hilda!” 

“I know it was very wicked. But I didn’t go; I 
came to you.” 

“Thank God !” 


























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HILDA'S ESCAPE. 


211 


“You see, I am a coward. I am not brave like 
you. I can’t defy the world, like you, for love and 
happiness.” 

The iron entered Dorothy’s soul. A wild sense 
of injustice filled her with indignation, frightened 
for Hilda as she was, and as well overwhelmed by 
shame for her. 

“You are unjust in your trouble!” she cried. 
“The cases are different. You would forsake your 
marriage vows. I cling to them.” 

Hilda did not reply. She did not seem to hear 
Dorothy’s protest. She sat with her eyes on 
vacancy, woe on her face. Dorothy regretting her 
outburst, was silent, too, thinking what she could do 
or say to comfort her sister. 

Hilda rose to her feet. 

“I can go to him yet. He will wait for me until 
the opera is over.” 

Dorothy sprang forward and firmly pressed Hilda 
back into her seat. “You will stay here,” she said 
masterfully; “ I will protect you from yourself !” 

“He loves me, for he has followed me here.” 

“And Waldemar?” 

“He loves his horses — and La Hoyle.” 

Dorothy had heard of La Hoyle. She was the 
divinity of the pink tights and multi-colored lights. 

The miserable story was coming out by de- 
grees. 

There was a rap at the door. Dorothy opened 
it. Mrs. Trevor-Alien was there, asking if she could 
be of service. 





212 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


“Please don’t go away yet ; I may need you,” said 
Dorothy. “And won’t you ask Mr. Trescotte to 
remain in for a while?” 

Mrs. Trevor-Alien, satisfied something more than 
the usual had occurred, went down to Mr. Trescotte. 
Dorothy went back to Hilda. 






CHAPTER IV. 


ONE OCCURRENCE. 

Hilda told her story, but neither with ease nor 
connectedly. She was too much distressed, too 
much broken and torn by too many conflicting 
emotions. But with the aid of Dorothy’s skillful 
questions the miserable details came out. 

Pride, ambition, her mother’s urgency, her false 
education, her warped nature developed under the 
forcing processes of the hothouse of her peculiar 
training, not love, had induced her to marry Walde- 
mar. Then there was the awakening, the realiza- 
tion, the recovery from that intoxication which the 
artificial stimulus of modern high life induces, dull- 
ing the senses while it brightens the wits of its 
votaries. In the reaction which followed the pro- 
longed social temulency, the real nature of the 
woman began to have sway. She began to see, 
with a vision that was clear, not blurred, who Her- 
mann Waldemar was and what he was. Under the 
veneer of a gentleman he was brutish ; under the 
gloss the fine world had put upon him his grain was 
coarse. A gambler and a sensualist, his 'tastes were 
low and his pleasures dictated by them. In three 
weeks Hilda had received the education before 


213 



























































214 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

denied her. She had learned that marriage, though 
sanctioned by the Church, was, unhallowed by love, 
a bondage, a mockery, a disgrace. She had read of 
love in novels, but, under the careful tuition of her 
mother, she had believed it to be, like the book, fic- 
tion. To love was a figment of poetic fancy; to 
marry, that was practical and meant a rich husband, 
a fine house, a life of luxurious elegance. She had 
been, like the fillies of the racing stables, carefully 
trained to run, and when brought on to the course 
did run in the direction she was headed, for that 
was what she had been taught to do. But after 
three weeks, as by a flash, she had appreciated the 
truth of the existence of love by the curious process 
of realizing its absence from her own alliance. In 
the moment of her awakening it was revealed to her 
what it all meant — this compulsory companionship 
with a man with whom she had no community of 
taste or interest, from which was absent that magical 
glamour of love, which covers defects, makes 
blemishes perfections, minimizes weaknesses, and 
maximizes excellencies. Her stunted mind and sen- 
sibilities had in a moment sprung into normal 
development by the irradiation of an idea. 

She had arrived at this condition of mind, when 
in Germany two things occurred which powerfully 
influenced her. They were stopping on the sea- 
coast and a yacht race was exciting her set. A 
grandee had made up a party for his yacht, of which 
Hilda was to be one, to witness the race. After 
there was to be an excursion to last three days — all 











































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ONE OCCURRENCE . 


215 


under irreproachable chaperonage. Waldemar was 
to sail on one of the contesting yachts, since he 
was an inveterate yachtsman at home. This 
arrangement would separate Hilda and Walde- 
mar for three nights and four days, as the yacht 
on which she was would not arrive until the after- 
noon of the fourth day. Under unusually propi- 
tious winds, however, the yacht ran into its anchor- 
age on the morning of the fourth day. Hilda, 
uncomfortable and bored, leaving her maid to look 
after her things,, went ashore immediately upon 
arrival and before breakfast. 

Waldemar was large in a small way. Though 
their stay at the seashore was to be brief, he had 
rented a house. Entering this house, Hilda was 
admitted by the hall porter, who stared at her 
blankly, and whispered something to her in German, 
which she did not understand. As she ascended the 
stairs he shook his head in despair. To Hilda’s 
wonder the door by which she entered the room 
used by her as her boudoir , from the hall, was locked 
on the inside. She tried another door, one leading 
into a small cross hall, from which entrance could be 
had both to her own bedroom and to Waldemar’s 
apartments. This was unlocked. This bedroom 
was, apparently, as she had left it four days before. 
Condemning the negligence of the servants, she 
passed to the next room. Disorder, to which she 
was unaccustomed, reigned here. Empty cham- 
pagne bottles, cigar and cigarette ends were upon 
the tables, and on a large tray on the floor the 






216 should she have left him? 

remains of a feast. Astounded, Hilda halted on 
the threshold. Then advancing, a large sofa, her 
delight and comfort, came into the line of her 
vision. 

On it lay a woman, scantily clad, asleep. 

Hilda was stupefied. Slowly she went to the sofa. 
She stretched forth a hand to touch the recumbent 
figure, to see if it were real. But she withheld her 
hand and gazed, fascinated. Through her amaze- 
ment stole a sense of the wonderful fleshly beauty 
of the woman asleep. Hilda continued to gaze 
stupefied. 

An arm worthy Canova’s study was flung over the 
head of the sofa, an arm perfectly modeled, and 
through its white skin the blue veins could be traced. 
On this arm rested a head covered with crisp auburn 
curls — auburn in which there was a glint of gold ; 
a strong white neck, with alluring creases, rose from 
broad, white, dimpled shoulders, covered with a skin 
soft like satin and its sheen, with a hinting sugges- 
tion of pink; the chest and bust protected, not con- 
cealed, by the single garment, rose and fell with the 
deep and regular inhalations of the profound sleeper. 
Hilda’s eyes followed the bold curves of the relaxed 
body, rising massively over the hips, and rested on 
the limb escaped from its covering, gracefully caught 
on the edge of the sofa — a limb so perfect in its pro- 
portions as to appear to be the work of a sculptor 
rather than that of nature. A more sumptuous reve- 
lation of beauty Hilda, quickly responsive to all 
beauty, had never seen. As she gazed her stupefac- 



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ONE OCCURRENCE . 


217 


tion passed away. Her first thought was that a 
•ervant maid, basely taking advantage of her absence, 
had occupied her apartments. But the fine texture 
and costly lace of her garment did not belong to a 
servant maid. Hilda scanned the features of the 
sleeping woman. Beautiful as they were, they were 
devoid of soul and uninformed by intellect. Ah! 
They were familiar. She looked again and drew 
back in disgust. 

The woman was La Hoyle, her husband’s mistress, 
the divinity of the multi-colored lights. The 
woman who, for hire, exposed her charms before 
the public ! 

Rumor had connected Hilda’s husband’s name with 
that of La Hoyle, but she had refused to believe it. 
Now, however, she knew Rumor was truthful. This 
animal, not half so refined as one of his horses, was 
what pleased Waldemar. Disgust was followed by 
anger. It was not the anger of outraged love; she 
had no love for him to be outraged ; but the anger 
of a woman whose pride was hurt — who thought of 
the ridicule and contempt of her inferiors — of the 
delight and laughter of her equals; anger that the 
man she called husband should have invaded her 
apartments with such a thing — that her own private 
domain should have been so contaminated. 

With head very erect she left the room, descend- 
ing the stairs to the entrance hall, where she sum- 
moned the servants. All of them had been out of 
the way on her arrival, for it was yet early morning. 
None of them save the hall porter, and perhaps Wal- 










2 1 8 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


demar’s man, was aware of the presence of La 
Hoyle. She ordered one servant to procure her 
breakfast, another to announce her arrival to Mr. 
Waldemar, and yet another to prepare a suite of 
rooms for her occupancy in another part of the 
house, forbidding all to enter the rooms she had 
just left. 

Waldemar, who was in his bath, received the 
announcement of his wife’s arrival with alarm. It 
was awkward. He awoke La Hoyle hurriedly and 
hid her in his own apartments, and hastened in bath- 
robe and slippers to detain his wife until the room 
could be restored to a semblance of order. He would 
have embraced Hilda in his nervousness, but she put 
him aside impatiently. She was calm but con- 
temptuous. She made no reference to what she had 
seen. He asked when she had arrived; she told 
him, and of the incidents of her trip. She was 
almost gay in her recital. But it was the gayety 
of hysteria. 

Waldemar, convinced that his wife had discovered 
nothing, yet wondering at her manner, returned 
when he thought it safe. As he ascended the stairs 
he planned to get La Hoyle out of the house unob- 
served, and he cursed his own weakness that had 
made him yield to the wild and imperious caprice 
of La Hoyle to be entertained in his house in his 
wife’s absence and to her arrogant insistence to 
occupy his wife’s quarters. Waldemar was ruled by 
La Hoyle. Subdued by her charms, he was enslaved 
by fear of her temper. 





. 










* 




































* *- 















ONE OCCURRENCE. 


219 


Hilda, behind the closed doors of her new apart- 
ments, sought relief in isolation in which she might 
bitterly deride the fortune that had chained her to 
such a man, and pray despairingly for opportunity 
of escape. 



CHAPTER V. 


THE OTHER. 

Shortly after the return of the Waldemars to 
Berlin there was a ball at one of the foreign embas- 
sies. Hilda attended. She was yet in that condi- 
tion of mind that made her believe that the discovery 
she had made was known of the world and that she 
was looked upon with contempt. At this ball Hilda 
met Lord Buttontrave, attached to the English 
embassy, distinguished, fascinating, accomplished, 
and, as the world said, destined to a high career in 
diplomacy. His admiration for Hilda was manifest 
at their first meeting. Hilda was no less attracted 
by him. Thereafter they met frequently. The 
young nobleman’s admiration developed into a pas- 
sion. And Hilda awoke to the fact that love did 
exist, and that she was capable of entertaining it 
deeply and passionately. With its growth for Lord 
Buttrontrave there was increase of contempt for 
Waldemar. That her husband should have brought 
La Hoyle with him on his wedding journey seemed 
to Hilda to justify her in the feeling she entertained 
for Buttontrave. And yet everything was in thought. 
Lord Buttontrave had whispered in her ear nothing 


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THE OTHER . 


221 


more serious than a compliment. The contrast of 
the two men did more wooing for Buttontrave than 
he did for himself. One was a man, the other 
an apology. She was not compromised by the 
attentions of the nobleman. Pride had guarded her 
against that. There was to be sure a little gossip, 
but La Belle Americaine , as she was called, was 
cold, it was said, and no harm came of it. Once 
after returning from a ball, at which Buttontrave 
had danced so frequently with her as to cause an 
unusual comment, Waldemar spoke of it in remon- 
strance. 

“Do not fear I will not respect myself,” she had 
replied coldly. “Before you give me advice, show 
me that you give as much respect to me and your- 
self as I do to myself.” 

As he had spent the whole day with La Hoyle, 
he did not care to continue the conversation, and he 
left her with the uncomfortable fear that she had 
come to have knowledge of the mistress. 

Though Hilda and Buttontrave continued to 
meet, the same reticence which had characterized 
their intercourse from the first was maintained. Yet 
neither was without knowledge of the state of the 
heart of the other. The vocabulary of love is mute, 
but none the less intelligible. Neither knew how it 
would end, nor perhaps in this, the springtime of 
their love, cared. But when the time came to return 
to America both were distressed and unhappy. 
The night before her departure, on parting from her, 
he had whispered, “I will follow,” but she was not 



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222 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


comforted. On the steamer’s deck, a few moments 
before sailing, a respectable-looking man, who had 
been hovering about her, taking advantage of the 
temporary absence of Waldemar, dropped into her 
hand a small packet not larger than an English wal- 
nut, touched his hat respectfully, and disappeared 
over the side of the steamer. Instinctively conceal- 
ing the packet, she had examined it in private. It 
was a ring, so fashioned that the colors of the jewels 
made a “forget-me-not.” There was neither word 
nor symbol to indicate from whence it had come, 
but Hilda knew it was a message from Buttontrave. 
From that moment she wore it, not on her finger, 
but next her heart. But she never expected to see 
Buttontrave again. She was saddened and despair- 
ing. That was the meaning of her listlessness and 
indifference to all things upon her return home. 

Once back in New York all semblance of attention 
upon the part of Waldemar passed away. Hilda’s 
disgust and contempt for her husband increased, and 
she was left to brood over what might have been 
had she not been hurried by her mother into that 
hateful marriage. 

Not many weeks had passed before Lord Button- 
trave, having thrown over his post, appeared in New 
York. Rumor said he had come to secure an Ameri- 
can heiress, and the matron mothers were all agog. 
Cards and invitations poured in upon him, all of 
which were accepted, for it was through these enter- 
tainments he could meet Hilda. This time he put 
no restraint upon himself. He whispered words of 































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THE OTHER. 


22 3 


love into her ears, and she listened with the eager- 
ness of a starved soul. So, when finally proposing 
to throw to the winds, for her sake and love, the 
ambitions of a career he had cherished, he had 
offered flight as their destiny, she had accepted. 
But at the very moment of its consummation she 
had recoiled, and in a panic escaped to Dorothy. 

“Does your husband know of your flight ?” asked 
Dorothy, when there was no more to be told. 

“No.” 

“But he has learned of it by this time?” 

Hilda laughed bitterly. 

“He rarely comes in until the night is nearly over, 
and then he goes straight to his own room. He 
will know to-morrow afternoon.” 

“He will know on finding you gone?” 

“I left a note to be handed him by Ellen.” 

Ellen was an old Courtenay servant, transferred 
to Hilda. 

Dorothy thought a brief moment, and then said : 

“Stay where you are. Do not leave this room 
until I return.” 

Hastening to Trescotte and Mrs. Trevor-Alien, 
Dorothy told them so much as was necessary to 
make them understand the situation. 

“Lord Buttontrave must leave the country,” said 
Trescotte promptly. “I will attend to that. Then 
that letter to Waldemar — that must be recovered. 
When these things are done it will be time enough 
to consider the next step.” 

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224 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


Trevor-Alien. “I will drive you to Hilda’s house. 
Come.” 

Trescotte, approving this, hurriedly departed. 
Calling Downs, Dorothy said to him : 

“Mrs. Waldemar is in my room. She is not well — 
in fact, very ill. Watch her faithfully during my 
absence, and if she tries to leave the house, detain 
her, even if you have to use force.” 

The two women hurried away. Both were silent, 
busy with their own thoughts. Each would have 
been astonished could she have read the other’s 
mind. Dorothy was thinking how Lou Graham 
(her friend) and her sister Hilda had been sacrificed 
upon the altar of wealth and society, and how differ- 
ently each had borne the test, and her affection, as 
did her admiration, increased for the brave little 
woman beside her, who had so uncomplainingly 
borne her crown of sorrow. And Mrs. Trrevor-Allen 
was thinking how true the woman sitting beside her 
had been to her love and her ideals, and how nobly 
she had borne the world’s misunderstanding of her, 
and her affection for Dorothy, as did her admiration, 
increased. 

As they were nearing the house, Dorothy sud- 
denly threw her arms about Mrs. Trevor-Alien and 
whispered : 

“Lou, dear, when Mr. Magrane comes to you to- 
morrow night, ask him to take no steps for the 
present about Mrs. Adams’ boy.” 

“You heard our talk to-night?” 

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THE OTHER. 


225 


“Why do you ask that?” 

“I want to think it all out.” 

They had reached Waldemar’s house, and the car- 
riage had stopped as Mrs. Trevor-Alien gave her 
consent. 

It did not require many minutes to persuade 
Ellen to give up the letter sought. Dorothy was 
her favorite, and it was enough for Dorothy to tell 
her that Hilda was ill at her home, and wished the 
letter. The two women returned, pleased that by 
the recovery of the letter a scandal had been 
averted. 

Dorothy found her sister sitting as she had left 
her, dry-eyed and staring into vacancy. She handed 
the letter to Hilda, telling her to destroy it. Hilda 
took it, stared at it dumbly, then realizing what it 
was, gave herself up to a paroxysm of anger. 

“Why do you interfere in my affairs?” she cried. 
“I will go to him! He waits for me now! The 
man I ” 

She broke down and, throwing herself upon Dor- 
othy’s neck, burst into tears. 

“The best thing that could have happened to her,” 
commented the practical Mrs. Trevor-Alien. ‘It 
will save her from brain fever or something. Now 
put her to bed and I’ll go home.” 

In the meantime, Trescotte had hurried to the 
opera house. The hour was late and the distance 
far. He feared the opera would be over before he 
could get downtown. Calling a hack at the corner, 
he promised double fare to be driven rapidly. As 


















226 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


he turned from Seventh Avenue into Fortieth 
Street he had the satisfaction of seeing the blazing 
lights of the house and the long line of carriages. 
Signaling the driver to stop, he dismissed him, 
and sauntering up the street on the side opposite to 
the opera house, peered into every carriage. He 
had not met Lord Buttontrave, but he was certain 
he would know him. Find him he must, if he fol- 
lowed him all night. The Champagne sailed at six 
the next morning and Buttontrave must sail with it. 
He reached Broadway without finding his man. On 
the corner he stopped to think. If, he thought, it 
was arranged that in joining him it was to appear 
as if Hilda was leaving the opera, then Buttontrave 
would be near the main entrance where he could 
watch for her coming. Acting upon this thought 
he crossed the street and walked rapidly down to 
that entrance. Near the covered way he saw a 
coach about which there was an air of mystery. 
The curtains were drawn over the side windows. 
He approached it. The man he was looking for 
was within it. 

“My lord,” he said as he opened the door without 
ado, “permit me to present myself. I am Mr. Tres- 
cotte.” 

The nobleman was congealed haughtiness. 

“Your intrusion' is unpardonably impertinent,” he 
replied. 

“I think not,” returned Trescotte steadily, with a 
tone of severity that made the other stare hard into 
the eyes of him who had so unceremoniously thrust 


















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THE OTHER. 


227 


himself into the coach. “My name perhaps conveys 
nothing to you. My wife — Mrs. Trescotte — is a 
sister of Mrs. Waldemar.” 

The face of the Englishman was inscrutable. 
Upon the word Waldemar he was on guard at every 
point. He bowed haughtily. 

“Mrs. Waldemar is at my house,” continued 
Trescotte, “quite ill, under Mrs. Trescotte’s care. 
She will be unable to leave the house to-night, and 
will not see anyone.” 

The nobleman regretted to hear it. 

“Permit me to suggest,” Trescotte went on in his 
cold, severe, and yet perfectly courteous tone, “that 
you would do well to take possession of your state- 
room on the Champagne to-night. It sails at six, 
and it is unpleasant to rise so early.” 

The nobleman was of the opinion that Mr. Tres- 
cotte was too solicitous as to his comfort. 

“It is much the easier way,” replied Trescotte. 
“It will save much annoyance. As yet Mr. Walde- 
mar knows nothing that should disturb him. 
Believe me, my lord, we don’t fight duels here. But 
public sentiment justifies the outraged husband in 
taking a summary justice into his own hands.” 

“Please tell cabby to drive to the Brevoort 
House,” said the nobleman. “Good-night.” 

Trescotte did as he was requested, closed the 
door of the coach, bade Lord Buttontrave good- 
night and went home. 












CHAPTER VI. 


HILDA RETURNS HOME. 

Hilda was saved. For what? A joyless exist- 
ence with a man whom she loathed and despised 
from the bottom of her bitter soul. 

The next step was the subject of an earnest dis- 
cussion between Trescotte and Dorothy the next 
morning. Trescotte was urgent in his opinion that 
Hilda should return to her own home as soon as 
possible, and thus avoid the possibility if a scanda- 
lous talk. Whatever arrangements Hilda wanted 
to make for her future life, in his judgment, could 
better be initiated from her home than elsewhere. 
And Dorothy agreed with him. 

After a night’s sleep Hilda was in a better frame 
of mind to look upon her situation. As I have had 
occasion to remark, I do not pretend to understand 
the inconsistencies and contradictions of the female 
heart. And so without attempted explanation, I 
merely state that Hilda awoke at once glad and 
regretful. She was glad to find herself under the 
protecting Trescotte wing, safe from the fascina- 
tions of adorable English noblemen, and regretful 
that the particular adorable English nobleman, fas- 
cinating to her, was disappointed in his enterprise 

228 











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HILDA RETURNS HOME. 


229 


and had fled America without even an effort to see 
her again. Indeed, now that the danger and the 
possibility of yielding was passed, she longed pas- 
sionately for the opportunity of yielding. Since 
Lord Buttontrave was secure on the deck of an 
ocean steamer, she vowed to herself if he were to 
open the door of her room and say “Come!” she 
would rise up and follow him with gratitude. In- 
deed, as all the joy and happiness which, in her 
dreams during the days preceding the day of action, 
she had promised herself with Lord Buttontrave 
receded from her view and became impossible, she 
yearned for them, at the very moment she felt 
strong in the security of the knowledge that he was 
on that steamer deck. And she visited Trescotte, 
who had sent the fascinating young nobleman away, 
with no displeasure. 

To the contemplation of Waldemar she turned 
with positive hatred. She was angry with Dorothy 
because she had not let the letter go to its destina- 
tion to forever and for all time sever the bonds of 
the hateful tie. It was difficult for Trescotte to 
make her see that, if she contemplated^ divorce, such 
a course would have placed a weapon in the hand of 
Waldemar, while under the recovery and destruc- 
tion of the letter he was practically defenseless. 

But to urge her, or to encourage Hilda in the 
obtainment of a divorce was not the purpose of 
Trescotte; nor was it of Dorothy. Indeed both of 
them shrank from the idea with a sincerity quite 
amusing to a cyncial old fogy like myself. Here 



230 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HLM? 

were these two people, still smarting under stings, 
and whose backs were yet raw with the lashes 
which had been laid on by society, employing 
with Hilda the very same arguments that had 
been used against them. Mrs. Courtenay could 
not have placed the awful frowns of society and 
the terrible consequences of the avertance of its 
countenance before her sister, any more forcibly than 
did dear little Dorothy. Her arguments were to 
me the strongest assurance that Dorothy was secure 
in the faith that the life she was living was just and 
moral. 

Hilda, whose ability to follow the argument was 
somewhat obstructed by considerations of Dorothy’s 
own doubtful relations, and yet unable to combat 
them, reluctantly yielded. When she left her home 
the previous night it was with the belief that the 
hateful bonds were severed for all time. Though 
she had failed in courage to carry out her purpose, 
the thought of returning was distressing. As a con- 
cession to society and the sacred Courtenay family 
only would she go back, and if she did, it must be 
with the distinct understanding that if not an 
apparent, a virtual separation from Waldemar should 
result, with a separate allowance, and no intercourse 
with her husband except in public and for the sake 
of propriety. Only on these conditions would she 
return. Trescotte engaged to undertake this enter- 
prise, and so Hilda went back to her home, and Wal- 
demar arose at noon unaware that his wife had not 
spent the night under his roof. 












HILDA RETURNS HOME. 


231 


Trsecotte’s mission was not agreeable. A little 
thought showed him that his chances for success 
would be better were he to deal with the elder Wal- 
demar. The younger man was pugnacious and 
would be inclined to ask upon what authority he, 
Trescotte, interfered in his marital affairs, and to 
suggest the advisability of straightening out his own 
troubles before engaging in an effort to correct those 
of other people, but he had given his word to Hilda, 
and there was no one else to act for her. So he 
sought the elder Waldemar in his bank parlor. 

There was an ominous frown and a dark look in 
his eyes as Trescotte revealed the turpitude of Wal- 
demar the younger. No one could be more insolent 
or more audaciously and courteously haughty than 
the elder Waldemar. 

“Do you not think,” said the old banker, with 
that accent which made his words so impressive, 
“that this is a very singular mission for you to be 
employed upon? One, my dear Mr. Trescotte, 
ought not to hurl stones if in a glass house he lives.” 

“Mr. Waldemar,” replied Mr. Trescotte, with an 
air quite as haughty and a tone quite as arrogant, “a 
man should not even refer to a matter of which he 
is wholly ignorant. I shall not affect not to under- 
stand that you are referring to that gossip which 
slanderous tongues distinguished me with. You are 
wholly ignorant as to my relations, and being so, any 
reference you may make to them is cowardly.” 

‘‘Sir!” 

“I mean precisely what I say. If this is to end 













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232 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

our interview, then I will carry the commission I 
have received to a lawyer. I had hoped for the sake 
of two families — the Waldemarsand the Courtenays 
— that my mission would be received with courtesy, 
and thus trouble and scandal would be avoided. 
You shall choose.” 

This was summary proceeding, and Trescotte 
rose, hat in hand, and assumed an attitude of wait- 
ing. 

The elder Waldemar was as politic as he was arro- 
gant. He smiled as he said : 

“You are a diplomat, sir. Resume your seat and 
let me know what the young Mrs. Waldemar 
demands. But first let me ask if there is not a pos- 
sibility that her charges against her husband may be 
disputed.” 

“An hour devoted to inquiry, Mr. Waldemar, 
would assure you of the relations existing between 
your son and the woman known as La Hoyle. With 
the facts in my possession and the proof which I 
will submit, you can assure yourself that the rela- 
tion has existed so long that it antedates your son’s 
marriage by a year; that when Hermann went to 
Germany on his wedding journey La Hoyle followed 
him, and during the whole of that trip he did not 
lose sight of her.” 

The old banker was shocked. 

“Enough!” he cried; “if this be true there is no 
defense for him. That was bad ; the wedding jour- 
ney, that was bad.” 

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HILDA RETURNS HOME. 


233 


the old gentleman, if it were not for«the episode of 
the wedding journey, the rest might be forgiven. 

“If Hermann gives up the girl,” he said, “gives 
assurances of reform, Hilda will pardon him?” 

“I think not?” 

“And indeed, why?” 

“Her pride has been outraged. With your expe- 
rience in life, sir, you will understand the potency 
of that. Do not misunderstand her position. Her 
desire is a release by divorce. Mrs. Trescotte and 
myself have persuaded her from that, but no power 
will alter her present determination. If it is not 
granted she will leave his roof.” 

“Why, then,” asked Mr. Waldemar, “has Mrs. 
Waldemar the younger waited more than a year 
after her discovery to make her charges?” 

It was not the purpose of Trescotte to tell the 
old gentleman the incidents which had led up to 
Hilda’s determination. His memory and ready wit 
served him. 

“La Hoyle had a seat on Hermann’s drag at the 
races yesterday, and Hermann held the whip himself. 
She was flaunted, permit me to say, in the faces of 
Mrs. Waldemar’s friends and associates — the culmi- 
nation of a long series of insults and humiliations.” 

The old banker thought for a while and then said : 

“It is a pity that Mrs. Waldemar the younger 
could not be persuaded that the better way would 
be to accept Hermann’s assurances of reform. But 
you say that is impossible. Well, it shall have to 
be, then, as she will dictate. I will examine, and in 



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234 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HLM? 


a day or two will communicate with you as her 
representative. I presume it is the best way out of 
a very distressing business.” 

Thus the interview ended, and Trescotte, as he 
went away, was certain that the old banker thought 
that the end of the arrangement proposed would be 
the reconciliation of the two young people, and in 
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CHAPTER VII. 


DOROTHY’S SACRAMENTS. 

While Trescotte was submitting the Waldemar 
entanglement to the old banker, Dorothy was sitting 
beside the cradle of her firstborn. Two subjects 
possessed her mind. Crooning a lullaby, soft and 
low, as she gently swung the cradle of her new joy 
and hope, she was lost in deep meditation. 

Hilda’s hopeless position, her unhappiness, her 
narrow escape from shame and disgrace was one of 
her subjects. Could Mrs. Deekman and Mrs. Bees- 
tonmy have read the thoughts of Dorothy at this 
time, I greatly fear they would have been confirmed 
in the justice of the crusade they had organized 
against this young mother. Her thoughts were bit- 
ter against society, — the society she knew — its ideals, 
its motives, its morals, and its educational influences. 
So dead had she become to the code upheld by 
such superexcellent women as the two who had led 
in the ostracism of herself, that she actually pro- 
nounced that society as false, wicked, even without 
common sense, which is much worse, as we all 
know, than being false or wicked. When she sur- 
veyed the field and saw that Waldemar was no bet- 
ter nor no worse than others of his rank, in the life 


235 


























































236 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HLM? 

he led, restrained a little less, perhaps, by a sense of 
propriety and good taste, she felt that in looking 
down into the depths of Hilda’s misery she saw 
glimpses of the life of half the households of her 
acquaintances. When she thought of Hilda, alone 
in that great house, in the flush of health, young 
and beautiful, yet with not a single ray of hope to 
lift her up, she thought she was looking into the 
hearts of half the women with whom, in her girl- 
hood, she had romped and played. With that 
peculiar perversity I have noted more than once in 
the course this veracious history, she actually said 
to herself : “In a world where common sense and 
good morals reign, Hilda’s position with Lord But- 
tontrave would be considered no worse than her 
position with Waldemar, in which union only 
wealth and high position were considered.” 

Of course she was very bitter, and it must be 
admitted she was very sorry for her sister. She had 
acquiesced in the proposed virtual separation of 
Hilda from Waldemar, not as a settlement of her 
troubles, but as a mitigation of the horrors of 
Hilda’s life. And this woman, bred in the most 
exclusive circles of that society, in the most conser- 
vative manner, educated to believe that position 
within it was the highest aim of life, was led by her 
thoughts to pronounce, as the summation of her 
observations and experience, this dictum : “Its 
teachings lead women to forget their self-respect 
and virtue; Hilda should have a divorce.” The 
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DOROTHY' S SACRAMENTS. 237 

Beestonmy would have been shocked and saddened, 
is, I think, made very clear. 

That she should contrast Hilda’s position and her 
own was natural; The little cloud that had rested 
upon her own happiness put forward its claims for 
consideration — that cloud which Mrs. Trevor-Alien 
had said was of her own making — the jealousy she 
had permitted to take sway and erect that intangible 
something between herself and her husband. Under 
the guidance of this thought she traveled gently and 
by degrees to the second subject of her meditations. 

She admitted that in entertaining the unworthy 
thought she had justified Mrs. Trevor-Allen’s up- 
braiding. Even when she tried to excuse herself in 
the love she bore Trescotte and her desire to be 
everything to him, she was compelled to confess 
that littleness and selfishness had been at the bottom 
of her weakness. Bending over the babe sleep- 
ing so peacefully and trying to trace on that 
infantile face the lineaments of its father, and con- 
trasting the love, tenderness, and nobility of that 
father with the vice, brutality, and ignominy of 
Hilda’s husband, she vowed to dismiss all vestige of 
such weakness and be worthy herself and the man, 
the love of whom had rescued her from her sister’s 
fate. In this vow was the third sacrament of her 
life — a sacrament as holy as any at churchly altar, 
or under priestly hands — a sacrament, the influences 
of which were dignifying and evolutionary. 

Perhaps it was the association of ideas that 
brought to her mind Mrs. Adams and her passionate 


































* 







2 3 8 SHOULD SHE HA VE LEFT HIM? 

desire to be restored to her husband. Perhaps in 
the desire, which found place in these self-commun- 
ings, there was emulation of Mrs. Trevor-Alien. I 
do not believe it, rather I think it was the direct 
outcome of the resolves she had made over the pure 
face of the babe she was crooning to. Her heart 
was full of pity for the unfortunate boy whose mere 
existence was the cause of so much trouble, and 
who stood in the way of a reconciliation of Mr. and 
Mrs. Adams. 

So deep and absorbing were her meditations on 
this point that she forgot to croon and to rock. 
With a hand resting on the cradle and a far-away 
look in her eyes, she sat motionless a long time. 
By and by there came upon her face an expression 
that was saintlike and holy. The babe, missing the 
croon and the motion, turned uneasily, and the 
young mother, lifting it from its cradle, and cuddling 
it in her arms, covered its face with her own and 
breathed into its ears another vow. And that 
was the fourth sacrament of her life — a sacrament 
which in its influence upon her was ennobling and 
revolutionary. 

There was a step in the hall and a light rap at the 
door. Her husband, returning from his mission, was 
seeking her. With her babe in her arms she 
admitted him herself, and, at the threshold, met him 
with a kiss so tender and so clinging that he won- 
dered at it. Tears were in her eyes; he lifted her 
face to him. She smiled. April sunshine through 
a shower. 




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DOROTHY S SACRAMENTS. 


2 39 


“Why,” he asked, “what is all this?” 

“You are so good to me. And I have made a 
vow. I mean to be worthy of you.” 

“Worthy of me?” he repeated, in a tone which 
said she was already worthy a dozen such as he. 

“Yes. I will tell you — when you have told me 
what Mr. Waldemar says — something I have to 
propose.” 
















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CHAPTER VIII. 


DOROTHY’S PROPOSAL. 

The following evening, at early candle light, as 
they used to call it, before the fashion of hurrying 
through this jostling world had brought about a 
minute and prompt observance of hours and division 
of hours, Tracey Harte was entertaining the widow 
Trevor-Alien with all the current gossip of the 
day. He was her only purveyor now that she was 
withdrawn from society for a period of decorous 
mourning. 

When he had unloaded his quantum (and she 
had been unusually unattentive and had actually 
yawned twice during his most exciting morsel) she 
disturbed his self-satisfied serenity with this remark : 

“Tracey, you must stop calling on me.” 

“Oh, Mrs. Trevor-Alien !” 

“Yes, dear boy, you must. When I was a wife it 
was all very well, but now that I am a widow, and 
must regard propriety, people will talk. One can 
stand a little scandal when one is a wife, but talk, 
especially if one is without a husband, oh, my !” 

And the vivacious little woman turned up her 
dainty hands and her lovely eyes in horrified protest. 

“Oh, I say, that is rough ! ” stammered the luckless 


240 





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DOROTHY'S PROPOSAL. 


241 


youth. “You know I won’t know what to do if I 
haven’t got you to bully me.” 

“It’s sad, I know,” rejoined the lively widow. 
“Some sacrifice to the god Propriety is demanded. 
And, in view of all I have done for you in the way 
of completing your education, it is the littlest thing 
you can do for me — make a sacrifice.” 

“You can bully me as much as you want,” said 
Tracey dolorously. “I rather like it, but don’t laugh 
at me.” 

Reform Mrs. Trevor- Allen could reply a servant 
handed her the card of Mr. Magrane. 

“Perhaps that's the reason why I am dismissed,” 
said Tracey, much crestfallen, and not without a 
pang of jealousy, as the servant disappeared. 

“Now, Tracey, don’t be silly,” laughed the lady. 
“You are not in love with me; you couldn’t be, if 
you tried. And you haven’t even tried to try. You 
simply like me. You’re a very nice youth. But 
never be jealous of a woman’s lawyer.” 

“Why?” 

“Because she has to show up her unpleasant and 
mercenary side to him, and she’s such a fool about 
business that she knows she is disgusting her lawyer 
all the time. No woman falls in love with a man, 
unless she first is pleased with herself for having 
pleased the man. There is a small bit of truth for 
you, by which you ought to profit, if you mean to 
push your career as a heartbreaker. Go now, dear 
boy, this is a business engagement.” 

Tracey, believing himself badly treated, gave 







242 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


place to Mr. Magrane and went to his club an hour 
earlier than usual, where, to relieve his feelings, he 
swore at the waiters. 

“I have been thinking over that proposal of yours 
to adopt the boy of Mrs. Adams,” said the lawyer, 
introducing the subject which was the excuse of his 
visit — “thinking it over very carefully.” 

“Oh, that,” replied Mrs. Trevor-Alien indiffer- 
ently. “Mrs. Trescotte wants me to take no steps 
for the present.” 

“You have talked to her about it?” asked Mr. 
Magrane in astonishment. 

“She overheard our conversation last night and 
afterward asked me to do nothing about it for a 
while.” 

“Did she tell you why she wanted delay?” 

“No.” 

“It is singular, since a reconciliation between Mr. 
and Mrs. Adams would help her own situation so 
much.” 

“I do not understand that she opposes it,” said 
the lady, “only that she wants it deferred for the 
present.” 

“Well, we may talk about it all events,” said the 
lawyer. “I’m quite enamored of the idea.” 

“Then you see no objections?” 

“None, except those the mother may make, and 
those you say may be overcome.” 

“By convincing her that the sacrifice she is asked 
to make is for the good of the boy.” 

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2 43 


thoughts for a while. Then he remarked, as if his 
words were a reflection upon what he had been 
thinking, rather than an answer to her last speech : 

“Your sex is incomprehensible.” 

“To your sex?” laughed the lady. “Only be- 
cause you look too deeply for our motives.” 

“Perhaps. Our sex acts from reason; yours from 
impulse.” 

“No, not impulse, intuition — conclusions without 
the slow processes of thought, and with as much 
purpose and result as from your reason.” 

“More.” He thought a moment longer and said 
kindly: “You are a very good woman, Mrs. Trevor- 
Alien. To serve people who have won your sym- 
pathy you would burden yourself with the care of 
this child.” 

The lady laughed merrily. 

“How little you know, after all, of our sex. I’m 
pure selfishness. This act was prompted by selfish- 
ness. Bored with the emptiness of my life, I want 
something to fill it up.” 

“You are deriding yourself,” said the lawyer, not 
pleased. 

“I am not,” said the lady, pleased to see him dis- 
pleased. “Into the life of every woman, not utterly 
abandoned to some fault or vice, there comes at 
some period a desire to have something to love, 
care for, to worry about, to suffer for. It has come 
to me.” 

The lawyer turned upon her a grave look, search- 
ing yet kindly ; into his eyes crept a light of mingled 














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244 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HLM ? 

humor and admiration. Withal there was such a 
quizzical look that the lady was abashed. 

Then he quoted : 


" Those graceful acts, 

Those thousand decencies, that daily flow 
From all her words and actions.” 

For once that ready tongue was without reply. 
She blushed, becoming angry because she did, and 
blushed again. She was relieved by the entrance of 
a servant who brought the cards of Mr. and Mrs. 
Trescotte. Hailing their coming as a deliverance, 
she instructed that they be brought to the apart- 
ment in which they were sitting. 

“We knew we should find you here, Mr. Magrane,” 
said Dorothy, after the exchange of salutations, 
“and it was because of it that we came. Oh, I know 
that’s not nice, Lou, to you — that is, that it doesn’t 
seem so, but we have something to propose, and we 
wanted you two to hear it together and advise us.” 

“You hurt and flatter my pride in a breath,” 
laughed the widow, pleased to have the Trescottes 
there to stop that lawyer’s disconcerting looks. 
“What is the important proposition?” 

“Harry will tell you,” replied Dorothy, on whose 
cheeks were signs of the excitement she was labor- 
ing under. “It is very important and serious.” 

“It is something Mrs. Trescotte proposes.” Tres- 
cotte as a matter of principle always spoke of his 
wife as Mrs. Trescotte before others, no matter how 
close to her they were. “She overheard your con- 







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DOROTHY 9 S PROPOSAL. 


2 45 

versation last night and the proposal to take the 
child for adoption by you, Mrs. Trevor-Alien, and it 
seems it set her to thinking.” 

“That and some other things not necessary to 
mention here,” broke in Dorothy. 

“She heard your arguments too, especially that 
which set forth the position of the lad if he is 
allowed to grow up under the present relations and 
conditions. She has been thinking to-day, it seems, 
and much to my amazement, and I may say not a 
little to my perplexity, this afternoon proposed that 
we, she and I, should adopt the boy.” 

“Very disinterested in Mrs. Trescotte, I’m sure,” 
said Mr. Magrane, a little surprised, and, sniffing a 
conflict with Mrs. Trevor-Alien, prepared to side 
with her. 

“Not at all !” cried out the widow, owing him one 
for having disconcerted her. “It is only her duty, 
and what I knew she would do when she came to 
her own sweet self.” 

“But you wanted the child?” said the lawyer, dis- 
composed by the prompt rejection of his proffer of 
an alliance. 

“I don’t. But if I did, Dorothy is the proper per- 
son to take it,” she said, and then a little mali- 
ciously, “we’ll give you some time to reason upon 
the truth of this remark; I have arrived at it by 
intuition.” 

“I want to say,” Trescotte went on gravely, “that 
this conclusion was arrived at without consulting 
me. It is a way Mrs. Trescotte has of thinking out 






















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2 4& SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

troublesome things by herself and giving me the 
results of her cogitations.” 

Trescotte looked at his wife with a tender smile, 
for his mind went back to that summer day in Sara- 
toga, two years before, when their destiny was 
decided. The lawyer knew what he meant. Tres- 
cotte continued : 

“In the forming of her opinion I had nothing 
whatever to do. What credit there is in the nobility 
of the thought is hers.” 

“Never mind that, Harry, keep to the story,” 
laughed his wife, a little nervously. 

“And the thought is noble,” ignoring her inter- 
ruption. “But I am much disturbed and perplexed 
by it, seeing many objections. My relation to the 
matter is singular and perplexing. My duties are 
conflicting, and I have not arrived at any conclusion.” 

“It is time you did,” put in Mrs. Trevor-Alien. 
“And that you conclude to take the boy if Mrs. 
Adams will let you.” 

“Another intuition, Mrs. Trevor-Alien?” asked 
the lawyer. 

“Another intuition, Mr. Magrane,” laughed the 
lady. “Hurry up with the reasoning part. It is 
one of the penalties we have to pay, Dorothy,” she 
said, turning to Mrs. Trescotte, who had taken a 
seat beside her, “for the sweet consolation of men’s 
society. They will reason, when we know what to 
do at once.” 

“What are the objections that have arisen in your 
mind?” asked the lawyer, addressing Trescotte. 






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DOROTHY S PROPOSAL. 


247 


“Well, the first is that, owing to the peculiar rela- 
tion I bear to the boy, it might be charged that I 
had forced Mrs. Trescotte to an acquiescence.” 

“Doubtless,” said the lawyer. 

“Pure selfishness,” said Mrs. Trevor-Alien. “Your 
pride rebels at the thought.” 

Trescotte laughed. 

“It is true,” he said, “but I will dismiss my pride.” 

“Objection number one disposed of!” cried Mrs. 
Trevor-Alien. 

“But what will its effect be on Mrs. Trescotte?” 

“Objection number two,” said the widow. 

“Won’t such an act raise up a great deal of talk 
and set tongues wagging again?” 

“They must wag, then,” said Dorothy. “They 
have wagged industriously for a year, and still we 
live and are happy.” 

“A nine day’s wonder. The christening of the 
baby you have at home will cause as much,” re- 
marked the widow. 

“I am inclined to believe,” said the lawyer, “that 
while gossip and speculation will follow the act, that 
the utmost malice can do will be to insinuate that 
Mrs. Trescotte had been forced to comply. But 
since it is not so, it need not be counted here. In- 
deed, I’m also inclined to think that the great 
majority will approve and sympathize with the act, 
as one virtuous and noble, and for which Mrs. Tres- 
cotte should be applauded.” 

“Oh, don’t discuss me so much,” cried Dorothy, 
abashed. “Talk about the business we came on.” 











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248 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

“They will talk — the world, I mean — anyway,” 
put in the little widow very decidedly. “If you 
don’t take the child, people will talk; and if you do, 
they will. Why, if I had taken the child and adopted 
it, as I proposed, they would have whispered that it 
was my own ; that I had had it conveniently hidden 
until I could become a widow.” 

“Why, Lou !” cried the horrified Dorothy. 

“They would. Oh, I know this charming world 
of ours. Well, objection number two is disposed 
of. Now for objection number three.” 

Trescotte’s face suddenly sobered. He began 
impressively : 

“Do not let anyone here misapprehend my words 
in this statement. But I am sure no one here will 
charge me with failing to give to my wife the deep- 
est love and the highest admiration for her sterling 
character and true nature. When I say it now, I 
say it before friends, who, when the clouds over us 
were the darkest, and when there was danger and 
reproach in association with us, held out to us the 
hand of warm friendship, and I know that they will 
accept my words as being as sincere as they are 
in fact.” 

Mr. Magrane and Mrs. Trevor-Alien bowed in 
response, not caring to trust to voice, for they were 
both affected by the deep feeling vibrating in Tres- 
cotte’s tones. 

Dorothy, with heightened color and dimmed eyes, 
asked gently: “Harry, is it necessary to say this?” 

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DOROTHY'S PROPOSAL. 


249 


gravely, and turning to the others: “The question 
with me must always be the happiness of Mrs. Tres- 
cotte. She has sacrificed much to continue in com- 
panionship with me, and to secure her happiness is 
only that gratitude which I should show her. The 
human heart is a mystery. The will does not always 
control it. On the contrary often the will is sub- 
ordinate. The human heart has laws of its own, and 
those laws, while often working in harmony with, 
are not builded in, the logic of the mind. Now with 
this preface I must ask, Will Mrs. Trescotte be 
happy in the realization of this proposition? I have 
answered the question of my duty to the boy, by 
putting first, and before it, my duty to Mrs. Tres- 
cotte. Now, may not the presence of the child, 
daily and hourly, be a vastly different thing in the 
realization, than when in anticipation it is viewed 
through the medium of exalted imagination and 
high purpose? To have that child enter our house 
and destroy our domestic peace, as it already has 
that of Mr. and Mrs. Adams, would be to work 
great harm, without accomplishing good to any- 
body.” 

He waited for an answer. There was silence. 
Mrs. Trevor-Alien looked anxiously at Dorothy and 
she was sitting with head bent. At length the 
lawyer said : “But one person can answer your 
question.” 

“And I am that person,” said Dorothy, lifting her 
head and looking at Trescotte very steadily, though 
her voice was low and somewhat shaken. “There 









250 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

is reproach in what my husband has said. He does 
not mean it, nor is it in his words. It is in what 
I have cast out, by the help of this dear friend,” — 
she put out her hand and took that of Mrs. Trevor- 
Alien, — “who has shown me what a good woman 
can do under circumstances so heartrending as to 
make by comparison my troubles pitifully small. 
I can answer out of a heart and mind that have 
struggled and won: Nothing will give me more joy 
than to see, standing at my husband’s knee, his son, 
when my babe is in his arms.” 

“Objection number three is disposed of!” cried 
the widow with a little gasp, and looking very 
straight away from Mr. Magrane, who had bent 
earnest eyes upon her when Dorothy made that 
veiled reference to her troubles. 

“Yes,” said the lawyer, “Mrs. Trescotte has 
answered. Judging from a disinterested stand- 
point, and a worldly one, I should say the case of 
Mr. and Mrs. Adams is not analogous. What other 
objections have you?” 

“Now, purely legal,” said Trescotte. “Can I in 
law be prevented from joining Mrs. Trescotte in 
adopting the lad?” 

“No. A man may adopt his own children, if he 
desires.” # 

“Objection number four disposed of !” laughed the 
widow. 

“Finally,” said Trescotte, “and I think this is 
difficult: What effect upon us and our position will 
the adoption have? Under your advice we have 





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DOROTHY'S PROPOSAL. 


251 


assumed that a marriage — a common law marriage — 
did exist between Mr. and Mrs. Adams. Would 
that assumption be changed or complicated?” 

“I see your point,” said the lawyer. “I can 
answer now. I would go about this adoption, if 
that be your determination, precisely as you are 
doing now — assuming the validity of that marriage. 
I think it would strengthen the position you have 
already taken.” 

“Objection number five disposed of, and the 
whole subject disposed of!” cried the widow as she 
sprang from her seat. “You see you have reasoned, 
you men, and finally have gotten to where we two 
women were in the beginning. Unless, Mr. Tres- 
cotte, you have more foolish objections to raise.” 

This Trescotte laughingly disclaimed, and the 
conversation took the direction as to the best means 
to be employed in accomplishing Dorothy’s desires. 
The end was that Mr. Magrane was authorized to 
open, in his own time and discretion, negotiations 
with Mrs. Adams. 



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CHAPTER IX. 


A BLOW FOR FREEDOM. 

Several days passed before Trescotte, in his 
character as the representative of Hilda, received a 
message from the elder Waldemar. Then it was to 
the effect that having had an interview with his son, 
Mr. Waldemar had received pledges of reform, and 
the old gentleman urged that, perhaps, Mrs. Walde- 
mar the younger would be content, and resume 
relations. Trescotte had replied that while he 
believed that Mrs. Waldemar would not agree to a 
composition of the trouble, except on the terms she 
had commisioned him to present, nevertheless, he 
would lay the proposition before her. Hilda was 
obdurate. A day or two more passed, and Mr. 
Waldemar, the elder, desired a personal interview 
with Hilda. The request was granted, though 
reluctantly, and only upon the condition that Tres- 
cotte should be present. Though the elder Walde- 
mar pleaded the cause of his son well, Hilda refused 
to consider, or to moderate her demand, insisting 
that she had indubitable proof that Hermann, not- 
withstanding his father’s assertions, had not re- 
formed. Forced to retire, Mr. Waldemar apparently 
yielded to Hilda’s demands. But days elapsed and 

252 



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A BLOW FOR FREEDOM. 


2 53 


nothing definite was done. Under one pretext or 
another, delay was made by the Waldemars, father 
and son, until Trescotte was satisfied, though he did 
not say so to Hilda, that they were engaged in some 
intrigue. They were, but not of so deep a charac- 
ter as Trescotte feared. The old banker believed 
that Hilda could be tired out with the delay, and 
would finally do something which could be tortured 
into condonation of Hermann’s offenses. 

Three weeks passed in this game of delay, and 
then a young man, a clerk of a well-known banking 
house in the lower part of the city, called at the 
Waldemar house, asking to see Mrs. Waldemar, and 
refusing to communicate his business to anyone but 
her. When Hilda came to him he placed a packet 
in her hand and went away. Had the banking 
people whom this young clerk represented known 
the ends they were made to serve, they probably 
would have been outraged; but they didn’t. They 
had been requested by their London correspondent 
to see that the packet reached the lady’s hands and 
hers alone. The packet was a letter from Lord 
Buttontrave. 

That letter was fateful. 

Gently upbraiding her for having failed him, yet 
excusing her upon some suppositional discovery of 
their plans, he renewed the assurances of his love, 
declared life without her companionship held out no 
inducements for him, and generally expressed him- 
self as strong men do when they are desperately in 
love, that is to say, foolishly and insanely. 













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254 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

The young matron read the letter a dozen times, 
glorying in it. Then she did what few women have 
the fortitude to do with a love letter. When its 
words were burned into her memory she threw it 
into the fire and watched it turn into ashes. She 
thought a long time by the fire. At length, arising 
with the air of one who had reached conclusions and 
formed a plan, she sat herself at her writing table 
and wrote a reply. She told him the truth of her 
failure to meet him ; she expressed the assurances of 
her undying love in terms not less ardent than his 
own ; she told him that she should put his affection 
to the test ; that she was engaged upon a plan, the 
successful issue of which would leave her free to 
gratify his love and her own ; she demanded that he 
should not write her for two months, but pledged 
herself to write by every mail ; if, at the expiration 
of that time his love for her held, he was to come to 
her in New York; she charged him to destroy her 
letters as received, telling him that any accidental 
discovery of them might defeat her plan. 

Sealing her letter, she dressed, called her carriage, 
and driving to the office of Mr. Magrane, she asked 
him to begin proceedings for a divorce from her hus- 
band. To say that the lawyer was astonished would 
probably be to say too much, for lawyers in their 
experiences are not easily astonished, but he cer- 
tainly did marvel that the most brilliant match of the 
last season should have ended so sadly and so 
quickly. The proofs she submitted shocked his 
manhood and he accepted the retainer. 















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A BLOW FOB FREEDOM. 


2 55 


Hilda went home, and gathering her personal 
effects, went to Dorothy, asking a second time to be 
taken in. This time she did not leave a letter for 
Hermann. 

The Trescottes were embarrassed. Their own 
delicate position made them feel that Hilda, for her 
own sake as well as theirs, should have gone any- 
where but to them ; that in the publicity of the 
divorce suit their own marital affairs would be 
dragged out into the sunlight ; that they would be 
charged with having aided and abetted, even influ- 
enced, Hilda to the course she was pursuing. They 
were quite certain that Mrs. Courtenay, when she 
came to know of the divorce suit, would visit her 
anger and disappointment on them. Yet it never 
occurred to them to deny Hilda shelter, nor did 
they let her know their embarrassment. 

They were quite right, as it turned out, in their 
belief that Mrs. Courtenay would be angry with 
them. But Hilda averted the threatened storm as 
soon as its mutterings were heard, and in doing so 
showed a strength and a decision that demonstrated 
how great was the revolution that had been worked 
in her in the few months of her wedded life. 

“Mother,” she said, when Mrs. Courtenay, first 
learning of Hilda’s suit as she did from the elder 
Waldemar, sought her to have the proceedings with- 
drawn forthwith, and had begun angry objurgations 
of Trescotte and Dorothy, who were both present; 
“mother, the less you have to say of this the better. 
When you blame Henry and Dorothy for anything 


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256 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


I have done, you are wholly wrong. I left Walde- 
mar nearly a month ago ; it was due to their persua- 
sions and influence that I returned to his house. 
That I had left him a second time and begun a 
divorce suit, they only knew when I came to them 
for shelter.” 

“But why, child, did you not come to me, your 
mother, for advice?” asked the distressed Mrs. 
Courtenay, thinking that if Hilda had, how easily 
she could have prevented the dreadful suit. 

Hilda’s reply was crushing, and oh, the bitterness, 
the cruelty of it ! 

“Because I do not trust you. Having forced me, 
young, ignorant, and innocent into this disgraceful 
marriage to suit your own ends, your opinion could 
have had no weight with me. I did not go to you, 
because you have failed as a mother to me; because 
you have used me merely as an implement in the 
game you were playing; because I was merely a 
stone on which to build increased social power; be- 
cause your ambition prevents you from judging 
between morality and immorality; because you 
would have sacrificed me, my heart, my soul, my 
life, to have saved your own pride; I went where 
someone could judge between right and wrong. 
You cannot. I came to Henry and Dorothy. They 
are leading holy lives. Your influence over me is 
gone/ You have done me a wrong; I cannot and 
will not forgive you. If this is unchristianlike, 
recollect I am what you have made me. If my life 
is ruined, then you are the cause of the ruin. You 



















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A BLOW FOR FREEDOM . 257 

may weep, but your tears are not of contrition — 
they are of disappointed pride.” 

Hilda, concluding her diatribe, left the room. So 
intense and virulent had she been that Dorothy 
fairly shuddered, while Trescotte was filled with pity 
for the woman so humiliated ; and Mrs. Courtenay, 
after seeking sympathy from those she had come 
to denounce, went away murmuring something 
about a thankless child and a serpent’s tooth. 

Hilda’s suit was well on its way toward the day 
appointed for the taking of testimony before Adams 
arrived. He had come with a well-defined plan 
which should place him in a position of less em- 
barrassment than he was then laboring under. But 
on learning of the proposition of the Trescottes to 
adopt the boy, he was willing to defer action until 
the outcome of the movement could be ascertained. 
Indeed, he expressed not only a willingness, but an 
ardent desire to be reconciled to Mrs. Adams if suc- 
cess followed the effort, and thereby the stumbling- 
block was removed. 

Mr. Magrane seized the few days intervening 
before the taking of testimony in Hilda’s divorce 
suit, and journeyed to Buffalo. As he expected, 
Elsie received the proposition with alarm and dis- 
tress. Yet he set forth all the arguments, dwelling 
upon the doubtful position of the lad were the pres- 
ent conditions to continue, or Adams to obtain the 
divorce or declaration of non-marriage he was then 
preparing to seek. Too shrewd to offer the hope of 







2 5 8 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

reconciliation as a barter, nevertheless he deftly 
insinuated the idea, and left the mother to become 
accustomed to the thought. 

The next day he again sought her, and again 
went over the field of argument, and this time he 
had the satisfaction of finding that she contemplated 
the possibility of the IF, for she asked questions, 
and raised objections to be answered, not as if they 
were conclusive, as she had done the previous day. 
Finally Mr. Magrane said : 

“Mrs. Adams^ you ought not to decide this ques- 
tion, either way, without the advice of someone who 
will look at it disinterestedly, yet from your stand- 
point, and whom you can trust. Do you not know 
some honorable lawyer to whom you can go?” 

Mrs. Adams caught at the idea, and mentioned a 
member of the bar of that city, whose name Mr. 
Magrane recognized as of high repute, and who has 
since risen to great distinction. Arranging to meet 
Mrs. Adams at that lawyer’s office the following day, 
he left her. 

When they met the next afternoon, Magrane saw 
that Elsie still held the matter in abeyance. To 
Mr. Dayton, for such was the lawyer’s name Elsie 
had selected to advise her, he said : 

“If you will permit me, I will state the case from 
the beginning, and end with the proposition to sub- 
mit which to Mrs. Adams is the reason of my visit 
to Buffalo. If I go astray in any particular, Mrs. 
Adams will correct me. I shall make no argument, 
nor give color to my story. The parties I represent 














A BLOW FOR FREEDOM . 


259 


would not justify me in seeking to exert an undue 
influence upon this lady. If she accepts their pro- 
posal, they desire she should do so fully believing 
it to be the best thing she could do, and that all 
interests were thus best served. They do not wish 
to conceal the fact that in an acceptance of the pro- 
posal is the solution of many matters which perplex 
them and Mrs. Adams as well. With this exordium 
I address myself to the statement, asking your 
patience, for it is intricate and complicated.” 

Mr. Dayton thought there was little need of ask- 
ing his patience. Never in his experience had he 
listened to a story more dramatic, involving more 
novel situations, and he was charmed by Mr. 
Magrane’s methods of statement, which left no point 
untouched in its proper place or bearing. When 
Mr. Magrane had concluded, Mr. Dayton said : 

“I also am inclined to take the view that a com- 
mon law marriage exists. The idea of settlement 
in another direction has entered my mind, but it is 
yet too crude to formulate. I know this ex-magis- 
trate. He is about the city, a disreputable sort of 
a fellow.” 

Mr. Dayton drummed his fingers upon his table 
for a moment or two, looking through the windows 
to the wintry sky. Mr. Magrane waited for him. 
“If this idea,” he continued, “were to take form, and 
from it should come a solution of the difficulties 
simpler than you now propose, and a sum of money 
were required to effect it, I presume such would be 
forthcoming.” 






























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260 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


“Any reasonable sum/' promptly replied Mr. 
Magrane. 

“Very well;- you shall hear from me. In the 
meantime I will advise with Mrs. Adams.” 

Mr. Magrane returned to New York to plunge 
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CHAPTER X. 


THE DECREE OF FREEDOM. 

Publicity, so much dreaded by all involved 
directly or indirectly, did not accompany the trial of 
the Waldemar divorce suit. The court designated 
a lawyer as referee to take the testimony, which was 
done behind closed doors. Under Mr. Magrane’s 
skillful management there was no public mention 
of the reference, and society was deprived of a 
choice morsel. 

The Waldemars were disconcerted by Hilda’s 
vigorous movement. At the time they thought 
they were adroitly playing the game of delay she 
had forced them to a defense. And that defense, 
the elder Waldemar knew, was weak and made 
weaker by the fact that the younger Waldemar, at 
the very time he was making pledges of reform, had 
foolishly complicated himself. These facts led the 
Waldemars to join in the effort for secrecy in the 
proceedings. 

The proofs of Hermann’s turpitude were incon- 
trovertible, and there was practically no defense. 
Consequently the taking of testimony occupied but 
one day and the report of the referee, promptly 

261 

















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262 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


made, was promptly confirmed by the court. 
Society, though it knew that Hilda had left her hus- 
band and was domiciled with the Trescotte’s, was 
only made aware of divorce proceedings when the 
decree was entered and Hilda was freed from her 
bonds. As it knew nothing of the Buttontrave epi- 
sode, and had heard of La Hoyle, it became the 
fashion to sympathize with Hilda and denounce 
Waldemar. 

During all this time Hilda, as she had promised, 
had written to Buttontrave by every mail. She had 
told him in the series of letters what she had under- 
taken, and what success the effort was making; she 
had frankly told him that when put to the test of 
sacrificing her own self-respect, in flying with him, 
she had recoiled, for she had realized that she had 
been driven to the thought of so reckless an act as 
much by the misery of her life as by reason of her 
love for him ; she pledged him her undying affec- 
tion, and assured him that it grew as the days of 
their separation grew; then she became practical 
and formative, for she told him that his own love 
was going to the test ; that if he, as he vowed, held 
it steadfast and true, he would, when she was free, 
seek her in honorable marriage ; but if, as he applied 
this test, he found that his love was not strong 
enough for that course, it were better to forget her 
and his unworthy passion for her, and devote him- 
self to the career which to win distinction in was his 
ambition. 

Of course I am aware that this is quite the reverse 








THE DECREE OF FREEDOM. 


263 


of romantic — that it smacks altogether of too much 
common sense and practicality. If I were writing 
romance, I should have Buttontrave in a carriage 
outside the door of the courthouse, the steam up 
in his yacht in the harbor, and as the decree was 
announced, while the Waldemars were wailing and 
gnashing their teeth, the nobleman should whisk 
Hilda off to some land of flowers, where the sun 
always shines, and the soft, languorous winds always 
blow over the blue Mediterranean Sea, where in love 
and luxury they should live until Hilda’s retributive 
conscience pricking her, she should return to the 
bosom of her weeping family to die of consumption 
and a wailing orchestra; but I am writing sober his- 
tory and must adhere to the facts. 

So also must I record that instead of foolishly 
rushing to this country and interfering with the suc- 
cessful progress of her suit, Buttontrave replied to 
these letters despite Hilda’s injunctions to the con- 
trary. And in these letters his protestations of love 
were as ardent, and his expressions of hope of her 
success as fervid, as Hilda could desire. He assured 
her that when she sent for him he would come 
speedily, to weld her in a new bond of wedlock. 

As soon as she was informed of the decree of the 
court, which was immediately, Hilda drove to the 
office of the cable and sent this message: 

“Free. Come.” 

A few hours after she received his reply : 

“On wings.” 

Which was quite pretty but nonsensical, for even 










264 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

poetic license cannot convert a dirty smokestack 
and a thumping screw into the wings of a bird. 

And of all this no one had knowledge in this 
country save Hilda. 

But Buttontrave did not come on wings nor any- 
thing else. On the day he should have sailed the 
aged Duke of Somersfield, his father, after a brief 
illness not considered dangerous, died, and the suc- 
cession to the estates and the titles delayed him, as 
he instantly cabled to Hilda. But he begged her to 
go to London, where, he urged, they might be 
quietly married and take up that life of joy and 
happiness they had promised themselves. Hilda, 
her expectations a little dashed, sat down to think 
earnestly over this proposition. 







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CHAPTER XI. 


A SIMPLE SOLUTION. 

Apparently the enterprise of the adoption of 
the boy languished. Days wasted and weeks grew 
into months, and though Mr. Dayton’s communica- 
tions held out hopes, they meant delay. When hope 
was about gone, there came one day a letter from 
Buffalo informing them that Mrs. Adams had finally 
yielded, and consented to give up her boy to the 
care and adoption of Mr. and Mrs. Trescotte. And 
Mr. Dayton suggested that Trescotte and Dorothy 
should be in Buffalo on a certain specified day to 
receive the child. And further, that if Mr. Adams 
could be induced to be in that city, on that day, good 
ends would be served. The letter was particularly 
urgent that Mr. Magrane should on no account fail 
to be present, as the “short cut’’ had been found to 
be practicable. What that “short cut” was, puzzled 
Mr. Magrane. Being endowed with that great 
quality, patience, however, he dismissed the riddle 
until he could see Mr. Dayton. 

Though Mr. Adams demurred somewhat at what 
he called “traveling in the dark,” yet he agreed to 
go with the party; and Mrs. Trevor-Alien, insisting 
that having ridden in the front from the beginning 

265 









X 







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266 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

of the chase, she would not permit herself to be 
unhorsed at the end, declared that she would be in 
at the death, so she also accompanied them. The 
terms of this declaration proved to me that the 
lively widow had followed the anise seed bag on 
Long Island. 

At the time specified, Dorothy and Trescotte, 
Mrs. Trevor-Alien and Mr. Magrane assembled at 
the office of Mr. Dayton — rather, one should say, 
series of offices, for there were many rooms, the 
doors between which, on this occasion at least, were 
closed. The party was led into an inner room, 
where it was greeted by Mr. Dayton warmly and 
with smiles. Great satisfaction was pictured on his 
broad face. After seating his visitors he went to 
his desk, and taking from it a paper called Mr. 
Magrane aside. 

“Where is Mr. Adams?” he asked. 

“At the hotel, awaiting summons.” 

“That is very good,” said Mr. Dayton. “We will 
need him. Indeed I think I will send for him now.” 

He excused himself while he gave the necessary 
instructions and returned to Mr. Magrane, handing 
him the paper he had held in his hand. It was a 
certified copy of a law of the State of New York, 
recently passed. 

“What is this?” asked Mr. Magrane. 

“The short cut.” 

“I do not understand it,” said Mr. Magrane, 
puzzled. 

“Well,” said Mr. Dayton, his face positively beam- 














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A SIMPLE SOLUTION. 


267 


ing, “when you made the statement to me of this 
most extraordinary case, the idea occurred to me 
that there was a short cut to the settlement of 
Mr. and Mrs. Trescotte’s marital troubles, doing 
away with the necessity of resorting to the assump- 
tion of a common law marriage. After thinking it 
over, I sent for this ex-magistrate, Ebert, and ques- 
tioned him. The facts were as you had stated 
them. He was bitter against Adams. He thought 
Adams wanted freedom, and that having informed 
Adams that he never had been married he should 
have received payment for his information, which 
he never had. Working upon this feeling, I drew a 
bill, confirming and legalizing all of Ebert’s acts as 
a magistrate for the seven days after his removal, 
and sent Ebert to Albany to secure its passage. 
His acts were few, but among them was the mar- 
riage of Mr. and Mrs. Adams. The bill has, after 
the usual delay, become a law. You hold in your 
hand a duly certified copy of it. The marriage of 
Mr. and Mrs. Trescotte is therefore as valid as the 
rites of the church and an act of the legislature can 
make it, and no doubt rests upon the Adams mar- 
riage. I have paid Ebert twenty-five hundred 
dollars for his consent to this act and his services in 
its passage.” 

“And shall be reimbursed before I leave your 
office,” cried the delighted Magrane, marveling at 
the simplicity of the solution of Mr. and Mrs. Tres- 
cotte’s difficulties. 

Joyfully he took the law to fyis clients and ex- 



























































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268 


SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 


plained its effect, slyly remarking that organized 
society could correct its own defects, if one could 
learn its clumsy machinery. It was with difficulty 
that Dorothy could grasp the significance of the 
law, but when she did she looked with such grateful 
eyes upon Mr. Dayton that the bluff old lawyer was 
much disturbed. 

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Trevor-Alien in a 
bored tone, “what uninteresting people you have 
suddenly become — merely commonplace married 
people.” 

Mr. Dayton cast an indignant glance at the widow, 
much to the amusement of Mr. Magrane, who had 
come to know the ingenious expedients to which 
she resorted to conceal her own emotions. 

“You perceive, Mrs. Trevor-Alien,” he said ; “that 
the reason of the animal man does some time serve 
a purpose.” 

“Not reason,” she replied pertly, “a little superior 
knowledge denied the woman by the tyrant man.” 

But this was not the business that had brought 
them there, so Mr. Dayton brought them back to 
their mutton. 

“Mrs. Adams and the child are in the adjoining 
room,” he said. “She has consented. It is really 
the best thing under all the circumstances she could 
do. She did not yield easily, but she is firm now. 
I could have told you earlier than I did, but I 
wanted to pass this law first, and I thought it well 
that the little woman should first become accus- 
tomed to the thought of separation before it actually 



































































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A SIMPLE SOLUTION. 


269 


occurred. Come, Mr. and Mrs. Trescotte, let me 
take you to her. It would be better,” he added, 
turning to the others, “to let them go in alone.” 

He opened the door, and as it swung back Mrs. 
Trevor-Alien caught a glimpse of a picture that 
lived in her memory many days — the picture of a 
slight, graceful figure, a sad face sweetened with 
yearning, hopeless love, a child strained to the heart 
of that figure, a child face looking up wonderingly 
into those yearning eyes bent over it. A fleeting 
glimpse, lasting but an instant, but oh, how vivid. 
Often afterward, in the solemn watches of the night, 
that picture arose, filling her heart with pity and 
her eyes with tears. 

Mr. Dayton remained but a moment. When he 
came from the room his face was strangely drawn, 
and he was so busy with the papers at his desk that 
he could not address those in his room, and when 
a clerk came to tell him Mr. Adams had come, he 
went out to meet him. By and by he came back, 
followed by Mr. Adams. Mr. Magrane addressed a 
remark to the newcomer, but Mr. Adams did not 
seem to know what had been said, and replied at 
random, much preoccupied. 

Mr. Dayton went into the room where Mrs. 
Adams was, and then Trescotte and Dorothy came 
out. The boy was in Trescotte’s arms, looking with 
wondering doubt into the face so near his own. 
Tears she did not seek to conceal were in Dorothy’s 
eyes, and a pitying smile on her face. She rested a 
hand on Trescotte’s arm as she listened to the tale 






















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2 7 ° SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

of the wonderful things Trescotte was to show the 
little lad, and the most wonderful pony that ever 
was, to be all his own, whose silver tail and harness 
and cart won an eager light to the dark eyes of the 
lad, and wooed a smile to his lip. 

Dayton came again, very busy and very mysteri- 
ous, and beckoned to Adams. The door closed 
upon them, and there was a moment or two of 
silence. Then a soft, glad cry stole through the 
door, and all was silence again. The lad prattled 
about the silver tail and the long whip, eager to go. 

“Oh,” cried Mrs. Trevor-Alien to Mr. Magrane, 
“is there anything in this world more pathetically 
cruel than the eagerness of a child to run from 
the clinging love of its mother to the promised 
rainbow.” 

Mr. Dayton appeared for the fourth or fifth time, 
his face working nervously, and there was so much 
of it to work, again busy with the papers on his 
desk. Then he came to the group. 

“There is a little woman in there,” pointing to 
the door that hid her, as he found his handkerchief 
and blew a sonorous blast, “ who has experienced in 
a single hour the deepest sorrow a mother can know, 
the loss of her child, and the highest joy a wife may 
know, the proof of the deep love of the man who 
has won hers. Go now, good people. Do not 
wring her heart with fresh soi Aw by letting her see 
you carry her child away.” 

As they prepared to go, Mrs. Trevor-Alien said 
to Mr. Magrane : 



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A SIMPLE SGLUTION. 


271 


“I shall marry again.” 

“Whom?” 

“Mr. Dayton.” 

“Then I’ll remain to murder him.” 

But Magrane didn’t, only to complete a few 
details and draw a check, but long enough to see 
Mr. and Mrs. Adams depart — Adams with his wife’s 
arm drawn tenderly within his own, and a glad light 
of happy content on his face, and Elsie, with what 
he had never seen on human face before — mingled 
joy and grief, love and sorrow. 

When the Trescottes arrived at home, Hilda re- 
joiced with them over the happy settlement of the 
troubles that had vexed them so long, and astonished 
them by announcing her early departure for Europe, 
smiling curiously at their wonder. 

What most amazed the people involved in this 
tale was the rapidity with which the essential fact 
of these happenings — the regularity of Dorothy’s 
marriage — got abroad. 

“What a horrible thing, you know !” cried Society. 
“Here have people been saying something was very 
wrong about the Trescotte marriage, when it turns 
out there was nothing wrong, at all. It is positively 
awful that people should talk so. And the Tres- 
cottes were so reserved and high-minded that they 
would not stoop to deny the slander. How people 
can do such things passes all understanding. I 
must call on dear Mrs. Trescotte and show that at 
least I am above such littleness.” 

And the silver salver at the door filled up rapidly 









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272 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? 

with cards; and there were nods and bows, and 
gracious smiles in public places, and invitations to 
teas and dinners. And finally came the apotheosis. 
The Trescottes found their names high up on the 
list of the patron Patriarchs, as Dorothy, with a 
merry laugh, showed Mr. Magrane one evening, giv- 
ing that gentleman an opportunity to indulge his 
habit of quotation : 


“ Applause 

Waits on success, the fickle multitude, 

Like the light straw that floats along the stream, 

Glide with the current still, and follow fortune.” 

He sauntered away to the smoking room, very 
much at home in this house, to the happiness of 
which he had so much contributed. 

“This is ‘an earthly world.’ Downs, give me a 
cigar.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“‘When to do harm is often laudable;’ and a 
glass of Madeira, Downs.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“‘To do good, sometimes accounted dangerous 
folly.’ ” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Oh, you agree with Shakspere? You’re a phil- 
osopher, Downs.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Mr. Magrane supplied such of this tale as was 
unknown to me one bright moonlight evening on 























































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A SIMPLE SOLUTION 


273 


the deck of an ocean steamer, about a year after the 
close of its events, prompted from time to time by 
his wife. From old habit, I addressed her as Mrs. 
Trevor-Alien. She corrected me, laughingly saying 
that though she had increased her state she had 
diminished her name. They were going abroad 
for a prolonged stay, and proposed to spend some 
time with the Duchess of Somersfield. Did I recol- 
lect the duchess? Hilda Courtenay, you know — 
she who was divorced from young Waldemar? 
Oh-h, yes! Indeed! A duchess, hey! 


THE END. 



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SHOULD SHE 

HAVE LEFT HIM? 


BY 

WILLIAM C. HUDSON 

(Barclay North) 

AUTHOR OF “THE DIAMOND BUTTON: WHOSE WAS IT?” “JACK GORDON, 
KNIGHT-ERRANT, GOTHAM, 1883,” “VIVIER, OF VIVIER, LONG- 
MAN & CO.,” “THE MAN WITH A THUMB,” “on THE 
RACK,” “ THE DUGDALE MILLIONS,” ETC. 


NEW YORK 

THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 

31 East 17TH St. (Union Square) 

















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POPULAR NOVELS BY 

C. ZEE TJ~ ID S O UST 

(BARCLAY NORTH). 


** Few story-writers have jumped so quickly into popular favor ai 

W. C. Hudson (Barclay North) There is a rattle and a dash 

about everything that he writes, and a contemporaneous interest that 

never fails to please the reader as well as to hold his attention. ” 

THE DIAMOND BUTTON: WHOSE WAS IT? 

A Tale from the Diary of a Lawyer and the Notebook of 
Reporter. By W. C. Hudson (Barclay North), i vol. 
i2mo, cloth. 75 cents ; paper, 50 cents. 

** A pronounced success.” — Albany Express. 

JACK GORDON, KNIGHT-ERRANT, GOTHAM, 1883. 

By W. C. Hudson (Barclay North). 1 vol., i2mo, cloth, 75 cents; 
paper. 50 cents. 

“ A capital piece of work.” — Pittsburg Dispatch. 

VIVIER, OF VIV1ER, LONGMAN & CO., BANKERS. 

By W. C. Hudson (Barclay North). 1 vol., i2mo, cloth, 75 cents; 
paper, 50 cents. 

"The story contains not a single dull page.” — Ohio State Journal. 

THE MAN WITH A THUMB. 

By W. C. Hudson (Barclay North). 1 vol., i2mo, cloth, 75 cents; 
paper, 50 cents. 

“ Holds the attention to the last page.” — Cleveland Plaindealer. 

ON THE RACK. 

By W. C. Hudson (Barclay North). 1 vol., i2mo, cloth, 75 cents; 
paper, 50 cents 

THE DUGDALE MILLIONS. 

By W. C. Hudson (Barclay North). 1 vol., i2mo, cloth, 75 cents; 
paper, 50 cents. 

SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? In Press. 

THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO., 

31 East 17TH St. (Union Square), N. Y. 

42 







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